S6 E8: Pavol Luptak on Paralelni Polis Hackers Congress

Pavol Luptak is a cryptoanarchist who co-founded the Paralelni Polis movement in the Czech Republic. The organization focuses on empowering individuals to live their lives freely outside of the government’s intervention. It’s all about individual sovereignty and education to live a peaceful and prosperous life without bowing your head to Big Brother.

How can Paralelni Polis exist as a concept and organization without being shut down by the government? Well, the Czech Republic has more respect for political expression if it’s being done through art. And since Paralelni Polis supports visual arts which depict cypherpunk ideals, it can legally exist and operate under the protection of artistic free speech.

Better known among his peers as Wilder, Pavol Luptak explains how and why the annual Hackers’ Congress is still taking place in the middle of a global pandemic. In 2020, the Paralelni Polis event celebrates its 7th anniversary and faces an unique opportunity to present its ideals: while individual liberty is getting oppressed in the name of collective healthcare, it’s more important than ever to remind everyone of their freedoms.

This year’s edition bears the name “Digital Totality” and doubles down on the means through which we can become free and sovereign on the internet. In this regard, the regular talks and presentations are complemented by 16 workshops that teach you various practical skills. For example, Pavol Luptak will talk about his top 30 sovereignty apps.

Furthermore, the same event will feature Alena Vranova (who will explain how to use a hardware wallet and how you can even build one yourself) and Max Hillebrand (who is schedule to do a presentation about living and earning bitcoins, and another on the topic of BTC privacy through Wasabi, Tor, and JoinMarket).

If you’re interested in the event, you can purchase tickets for approximately 60 euro (or 70 USD) and pay with your satoshis. For this small amount, you get access to all the presentations, seminars, and workshops at Paralelni Polis.

Listen to Pavol Luptak on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube!

This interview includes stories about past Paralelni Polis conferences, which featured famous guests such as Nassib Taleb (famous author who enriched the vocabulary of bitcoiners with expressions such as “skin in the game” and “black swan”) and Lynn Ulbricht (the mother of Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht).

Luptak also tells stories about the first ever Bitcoin conferences from the year 2010, which he attended. And it’s always fascinating to hear about different times when people didn’t have the same understanding of BTC’s value proposition and were projecting some of their own ideas and values onto it.

For the audio-only version of our conversation, check out Bitcoin Takeover on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Donate to Bitcoin Takeover!

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider making a donation to the project. Here are the ways in which you can contribute:

If you’d rather send your donation via Lightning Network, please use Tippin.

And if you’re more into supporting via dirty US dollars, then I also have a Patreon page.

Even if you don’t want to donate anything, you can still contribute by purchasing a Trezor hardware wallet or Privacy Pros Billfodl metal plates or Faraday bags.