Bitcoiners are ahead of the pack in anticipating the blowing winds of change, and Brandon Quittem recently touched on the potential for these in his essay on The Fourth Turning. Of all the many preparations you can make, gathering your tribe—the people with shared values that you can rely upon—is one you should think about too. In my experience, none of us is as smart as all of us.

Well what brought all that on?

Hodloncomrades, theirishhodler and I are mates who connected on Bitcoin Twitter, subsequently met and have enjoyed many beers, ideas, critiques and questions since. We interact frequently, yet we live thousands of kilometres apart. And as a few old dogs we love getting together to chew the fat—often with a steak and a frosty cone—and there’s not been enough of that this year.

So back in early October when it looked like the Australian state borders were opening up, I was straight on the blower to share the good news: First weekend in November—let’s meet in the middle and spend the weekend talking Bitcoin and having a few beers. Verdict: Brilliant idea comrade!

Couple days later hodloncomrades launched bitcoinbushbash.info and banged it out on a tweet:

“Hit up @hodloncomrades or @BTCSchellingPt if you wanna come and join us”.

Bitcoiners started messaging, booking their accommodation, and offering to share info sessions. Then @owengwilliam kindly started up the Telegram group so there’s a private channel for sharing information with attendees (thanks mate!). Then I pulled my finger out and grabbed the twitter handle @bitcoinbushbash.

...and all of a sudden, it was not just a few of us, but a bunch of us—a couple of dozen bitcoiners—all getting out of their homes and travelling to Murrurundi in the middle of nowhere. A small country town with a typical big country welcome.

Start of November rolls up and still there were folks sliding into our DM’s “Yeah mate – keen AF – see you in a few days”. People we knew from the Twitterverse, people we’d never heard of, famous public bitcoiners like Stephan Livera and a whole host of ‘nyms.

Then the night before we each headed off for the day’s trek to Murrurundi, Bitko Yinowsky dropped his beautiful artwork on us—Twitter logos, backdrops, t-shirt and sticker artwork—everything with his incredible design aesthetic. All the Aussie plebs are grateful and impressed, Bitko!

Now, we’re not going so far as to say “Cause and Effect”... but as the faithful began their trek to the bushbash, The Korn, which had been languishing in the mid-13k range, clearly picked up on the mood and bumped straight to 15k. There were a lot of happy smiling faces that weekend—bitcoiners who’ve quietly stacked and held for years continued watching history slowly unfold.

The weekend itself was full of questions and answers and discussions and demonstrations and meeting friends new and old. Double the number of people who said they’d come, arrived; a happy surprise and the opposite of the normal Bitcoin Meetup attendance stats!

We all got to see how a Blockstream’s Bitcoin satellite receiver is put together and works. Newer bitcoiners had some introductory sessions that answered the stream of questions we all began with. We looked at HodlHodl’s new lending platform—Bitcoin DeFi, the kind of DeFi that actually works. We learned how to create a cheap air-gapped computer and then use it with TailsOS. We learned how to store seed words on washers with simple letter punches. We setup and cleaned out an OpenDime and talked about their use and their risks.

And we talked. We talked a LOT. Plus, we ate ALL of the steak at the pub—cleaned ‘em out. We’re particularly proud of that... and not at all surprised.

So whilst there were a bunch of things we could have done better for a smoother weekend, or should have thought of, or could have anticipated, the bushbashers gave precisely the quantity of fucks that the Honeybadger gives: Zero!

A good time was had by all—and we’ll do it again: there will be more Bitcoin Bush Bashes in Oz.

Yet that’s not where this story ends, but where it begins.

There’s been some conversation about what this could or should be and we wanted to share these things—and perhaps inspire other bitcoiners in other parts of the world to also Gather their Tribes too.

This was a completely ad-hoc event that grew legs all by itself. It didn’t need sponsorship or attendance fees, or an organisational structure behind it. It didn’t cost money to run. It was a bit haphazard in some ways and happily spontaneous in others.

We have huge admiration for what HodlHodl do to put on Baltic HoneyBadger, what Gary Leland does for Bit Block Boom, and what BitcoinMagazine does for Bitcoin 202x. But this is just a different approach—smaller, simpler and another alternative to finding and gathering your tribe.

We want the bushbash to have no cost to participate—a grassroots gathering as bitcoin is a grassroots financial system. Many volunteered time, ideas, presentations and demonstrations as their time and skills and curiosity allowed.

That is what community in action is.

We had a location, and we blagged a venue. Great word that “Blag”. Picked it up working in Ireland—the art of talking to someone to convince them to do something just for the heck of it—usually a bit of a cheeky ask. Turns out that old dogs are pretty good at that… hodloncomrades knew the publican at the Railway Hotel pub—he gave us run of the whole back area where there was a projector screen and a bunch of tables.

In return we probably gave him a months worth of business over the weekend – beers, steaks, meals and snacks. Quid pro quo. Nellie Belle’s did fantastic breakfasts and had great big tables in the garden outside. That became the unofficial start-of-day gathering place.

The country town of Murrurundi had been through the same 2020 that the rest of us had—and I think that the several dozen bitcoiners descending maybe helped inject a few laughs, a bit of juice into the local economy, and just maybe we dished out a few orange pills in the process.

Proof of conviction We wanted the bushbash in a regional location—away from the cost and congestion of cities. This proved to be a great choice, as people came from far and wide with no impediments. As StarfuryFlames pointed out, requiring a bit of a journey actually represented a conviction filter.

The only people who came were those bitcoiners who really wanted to be there.

There was a whole bunch of ride-sharing that went on—people who couldn’t drive got a lift—podcasts were abundant and banter was plentiful. I left the weekend feeling really energised and renewed after what’s been a long year. Bitcoiners are my tribe, and this felt like a gathering.

So to all the bitcoiners reading this, consider this a template. It doesn’t have to be grand or elaborate. The presentations and demonstrations are really just backdrops for all the other conversations–and they always tend to be the ones you remember most.

It’s time. Gather your Tribe.