The most FOMO I ever had for a conference was not going to Oslo this year. Had too much stuff clustered around this time to make it easily workable.
Most bitcoin conferences are great, but there's different energy in Oslo. Feels more like the essence of what this is all about.
I've also found, when talking to some (generally wealthy) American media personalities and so forth, is that the inflationary/authoritarian country use-case for bitcoin is generally off their radar until someone really gives them examples. They just think, "Visa works fine, why do I need the BitCoins?" and when you explain, "Well look at the underbanked percentage in this country" or "Look at how these democracy advocates had their bank accounts frozen" or "You're not a fan of Putin, eh? Well let me tell you about how Nalvany's organization used bitcoin to circumvent Putin's bank freezes for quite a while." or "Imagine you're in a small country with hyperinflation and decide to leave. You can't bring a lot of cash or gold with you. What asset do you bring to get more of your wealth out? And when getting that asset, wouldn't it have been better to hold some as a permanent part of your savings before you need it, rather than try to get some after things fall apart and capital controls are more firmly in place?"
Alex Gladstein's books, Check Your Financial Privilege and Hidden Repression, or his associated talks/presentations on those topics, are I think really powerful to showcase to normal people who don't think about this stuff too often why this technology is important.
