The CounterParty Conference, held in Miami, was meant to be a deep dive into the history and future of tokens on Bitcoin—a gathering of OGs, protocol builders, and the diehards who have weathered the ecosystem’s many fractures. But for me, the event took an unexpected turn when I was SIM-swapped on Day 2, forcing me to miss my own panel on the block size debate, censorship, and the coordinated efforts to silence big blockers.
It was a moment that felt eerily familiar—another chapter in Bitcoin’s long-running battle over control, narratives, and what’s considered “acceptable” history. In a way, I joined the ranks of Mike Hearn, forced off the stage not by argument but by attack.
But before my phone was hijacked, I did get to experience some of the conference—and there was plenty to take in.
What is CounterParty?
For the uninitiated, CounterParty is a protocol built on BTC that enables the issuance of tokens—think of it as an early attempt at bringing smart contracts and digital assets to BTC long before Ethereum. Born in 2014, it allowed users to create and trade digital assets, execute smart contracts, and even issue decentralized financial instruments on BTC’s blockchain.
It was an early experiment in tokenization, predating today’s explosion of Ordinals, BRC-20s, and Runes by nearly a decade. It was used for everything from rare digital art (Pepe the Frog memes) to gaming assets to early non-fungible token (NFT)-like experiments before “NFT” was even a term.
Yet, despite its innovative nature, CounterParty ran into the same resistance that many disruptive projects face in Bitcoin: Core developers and small blockers deemed it “spam” and worked to limit its functionality—a recurring theme for any attempt to scale or expand Bitcoin beyond their tightly controlled vision.
With that history in mind, CounterParty’s place in today’s Bitcoin landscape is fascinating. While it once seemed like a relic of a past era, the modern resurgence of tokenization—through Ordinals, Inscriptions, and alternative implementations—has brought it back into the conversation. The ghosts of CounterParty live on in today’s tokenized asset boom, and CounterParty tokens look to be making a comeback soon.
Day 1: A venue change and a strong start
The conference got off to a rocky but well-handled start with a last-minute venue change. Instead of the originally planned location, we pivoted to Bitcoin Citadel in Little Haiti, an intimate space that worked well for a gathering of this nature. Tatiana Moroz, one of the earliest figures to tokenize her music back in 2015, managed the transition professionally.
The first presentation I caught was a deep dive into Internet privacy and key management—a fitting and timely subject considering what would happen to me the next day. Security in Bitcoin isn’t just about storing private keys anymore; it’s about protecting identity, access, and personal sovereignty in a world where attacks are more sophisticated than ever. This comes on the heels of the kidnapping of a co-founder of Ledger and his wife in an extortion scheme as the space gets wilder by the moment.
Next was Adam Krellenstein, co-founder of CounterParty, on the history and future of the protocol. His take? The era of Bitcoin Core’s dominance is waning. “The culture has decided Core devs aren’t in charge anymore,” he claimed.
I remain skeptical. The influence of Core devs—especially figures like Luke Dashjr—still looms large, and history has shown that control over Bitcoin’s protocol doesn’t rest with users so much as with the gatekeepers who shape its rules through social control and sybil attacks.
Nonetheless, Krellenstein’s presentation was engaging, and it was cool to hear insights about Bitcoin’s great token opportunity that is still mostly unexplored even today.
I took a break outside to mingle after this talk, and met a few interesting people before going back in for another talk by Kristan Harris, the citizen journalist whose footage became key evidence in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. Harris’s transhumanism talk was a surprising highlight, particularly the discussion on the power of new media and its relation to things like direct-to-brain information streaming.
We live in a time when corporate-controlled narratives dominate traditional finance, tech, and even Bitcoin itself. The rise of alternative media and citizen journalism is one of the few ways to break through curated narratives—something Bitcoiners, of all people, should appreciate, and his talk made me more seriously consider wearing a tin foil hat.
Then came my favorite talk of the day: Dave Stoker’s presentation on the history of Bitcoin tokens. He laid out the evolution of CounterParty, Bitcoin-based tokens, and how Pepe culture, digital asset experimentation, and early attempts at decentralized finance (DeFi) all started here. He even produced a documentary about it.
Day 2: The attack and the missed stage
Day 2 was supposed to be my moment to dig into the real history of the block size debate, censorship, and even the acts of terrorism used to silence big blockers. My discussion with Gabe Higgins, a prominent Floridian small blocker, was set to explore how the war over Bitcoin’s future wasn’t just fought in code but in coordinated campaigns of deplatforming, propaganda, and direct attacks on people’s livelihoods.
But then, I got SIM-swapped.
My phone was hijacked, my access to key accounts was compromised, and instead of being on stage, I was spending my time locking down my life. Was I targeted specifically to keep me off of the stage? Maybe, maybe not, but the timing seems too coincidental.
If that sounds paranoid, consider this: This is a well-worn tactic used against those who challenge Bitcoin’s small-block orthodoxy.
One of the topics of my discussion was to be on Mike Hearn. Hearn, one of Bitcoin’s earliest developers, was driven out of the space through character attacks, doxxing, harassment, and persistent cyber attacks. Others, like Hearn, have been systematically deplatformed, labeled heretics, or had their projects crippled through deliberate Core development decisions. The goal has always been the same: Control the narrative. Eliminate dissent.
I had planned to talk about the Hijacking of Bitcoin—how Bitcoin’s small-block faction took over through censorship, political maneuvering, and backdoor deals that killed the original vision of Bitcoin as global, peer-to-peer electronic cash.
Instead, my absence from that stage became a real-world illustration of the very forces I was going to expose.
Final thoughts
The CounterParty Conference was a reminder of Bitcoin’s broader history—of experiments, censorship, and the ongoing battle over what Bitcoin is allowed to be.
It was also a reminder that the fight isn’t over.
CounterParty’s resurgence in the wake of the Ordinals movement and the demand for tokenized assets on Bitcoin shows that the desire to build on Bitcoin has never gone away. The censorship, attacks, and suppression tactics haven’t snuffed it out. If anything, they’ve created a new generation of builders and advocates pushing back against the small-block status quo.
I wish I could have been on that stage, but the attack only reinforced what I already knew: The battle for Bitcoin’s future is still raging. And I’m not going anywhere.
Bitcoin Lives!
Watch: Reviving the true value of blockchain—utility
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