As the birthplace of the Chaos Computer Club, the hometown of the mother of all hackerspaces, and what many of the world’s leading privacy activists consider to be a bit of a safe haven, Berlin may be the the strongest center in the world for hacker culture.
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Maybe that’s what makes the German capital a fertile breeding ground for the ongoing series of Lightning Hackdays (stylized as #LightningHackday). Introduced earlier this year, the series continues to grow, with the third event taking place last weekend.
“The first edition[4] in April was really just a large meetup with about 70 participants,” Fulmo[5] founder and event[6] organizer Jeff Gallas recalls, speaking with Bitcoin Magazine on the hackday itself.
The second edition[7] followed shortly after, in June, with the newest edition hosted last Saturday, September 1, 2018, this time accompanied by a hackathon on the day before. “There are probably 160 people attending this third and biggest event so far,” Gallas estimates.
Lightning Labs developer Johan Halseth presenting in the main room at #LightningHackday.
Hacking
On Saturday, the second floor of the Ahoy coworking space[8], home of the event, is entirely dedicated to the hackday. Partly improvised talks, demos and brainstorm sessions are ongoing throughout three different rooms of varying size. Only the largest of the three is akin to a typical conference room, with space for about a hundred people and a livestream setup by bitcoin-to-gold exchange Vaultoro[9]. The schedule in the smaller rooms is largely based on what various attendees wish to contribute, as written out on a whiteboard in the main hall.
But it’s actually this main hall that is
