This \u201cCrypto City\u201d guide looks at Austin\u2019s crypto culture, the city\u2019s most notable projects and people, its financial infrastructure, which retailers accept crypto and where you can find blockchain education courses \u2014 and there are even the juicy details of a famous controversy. Everything is bigger in Texas, including its enthusiasm for crypto.<\/i><\/p>\n
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Fast facts<\/b><\/p>\n
City: <\/b>Austin<\/p>\n
Country: <\/b>United States<\/p>\n
Population:<\/b> 974,000<\/p>\n
Founded: <\/b>1839<\/p>\n
Language:<\/b> English<\/p>\n
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The capital of the largest state in the contiguous United States, Austin is known as a live music mecca, with festivals drawing in thousands of people from around the world each year, including Austin City Limits and South by Southwest.<\/strong> The Texas city is a unique blend of liberal and conservative values, yet in many ways, it still operates under the old motto \u201ckeep Austin weird,\u201d with the University of Texas at Austin home to a diverse student body and the popular Texas Longhorns football team.<\/p>\n Long before becoming a hub of major tech companies \u2014 earning it the nickname \u201cSilicon Hills\u201d \u2014 Austin drew settlers from Mexico and the United States around the time Texas became an independent nation in 1836. Texas has stood under three flags with Austin as its capital: the Republic of Texas, the Confederacy and the United States of America. Though the city was largely centered around the capitol building completed in 1888, it later became known to many as a college town. For some years, the University of Texas at Austin was the largest university in the country by enrollment.<\/p>\n Austin and the surrounding area have also been the shooting location for a number of famous films, including Death Proof <\/em><\/strong>from director Quentin Tarantino, Dazed and Confused <\/em><\/strong>\u2014 Matthew McConaughey\u2019s first movie role \u2014 and many others. Though the city once drew, and still does draw, many starving artists pursuing their passions, interest from major corporations and their wealthy executives has begun to drive many natives and newbies alike out of the area due to rising rent and housing prices.<\/p>\n As the population of Austin grows, gentrification and commuting times remain a large problem for many residents. The main highway, Interstate 35 \u2014 which separates the downtown area from the freshly redeveloped East Austin \u2014 seems inadequately designed to accommodate the rising number of Austinites, with some traveling up to 30 miles between their homes and offices. The city faces challenges including a lack of publicly provided infrastructure for its homeless population, the way Austin\u2019s land can be used, and other issues endemic to the rest of the United States.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Many Texans have a \u201cdon\u2019t tread on me\u201d approach to local, state and federal governments telling them how to handle their business, their money and their personal life, despite the state showing only a lone star on its flag rather than a snake. In some ways, Austin residents\u2019 response to digital assets since 2011 has been representative of this mindset, with many jumping into the crypto space more as an alternative to central banking rather than a fad from the tech industry.<\/p>\n According to Paul Snow, a self-described \u201ctechnologist\u201d who runs the Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Meetup<\/b> group in Austin and organizes the Texas Bitcoin Conference<\/b>, the Texans who attend gatherings most consistently seem to be concerned about \u201cthe state of the nation, and the state of banking and finance.\u201d Snow says the group doesn\u2019t focus on the latest project getting pumped and dumped, with many holding Bitcoin, Ether and SOL, although some are also advocates of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.<\/p>\n \u201c[Our discussion] is basically a real broad analysis of every issue that is either in the crypto space or heavily within the context of the crypto space. Because the crypto space is largely a challenge to central banks, at least in a lot of people\u2019s minds, then anything that happens in banking and finance is interesting to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n Snow arrived in Austin in 2000 and started the Meetup groups in 2013, long before the U.S. government and Texas regulators turned their attention to crypto firms operating in the city. In mid-2021, the Texas State Securities Board<\/b> filed for hearings against crypto lending firm<\/a> BlockFi<\/b> in addition to Celsius Network<\/b> for allegedly offering unlicensed securities. However, lawmakers in the state also passed legislation the same year recognizing cryptocurrencies<\/a> under commercial law.<\/p>\n Crypto also has a supporter in the form of Texas Governor Greg Abbott<\/b>, who has hinted on social media that he wants the state to follow Wyoming\u2019s example<\/a> in passing more crypto-friendly legislation. When Texas supermarket chain H-E-B<\/b> announced in June 2021 that it would be installing crypto ATMs, Abbott tweeted<\/a> his approval, saying, \u201cTexas will be the crypto leader.\u201d Senator Ted Cruz has also recently come out as a vocal crypto proponent.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Count me in as a crypto law proposal supporter.<\/p>\n It is increasingly being used for transactions and is beginning to go mainstream as an investment. (Fidelity, etc. trying to get Bitcoin ETF).<\/p>\n Texas should lead on this like we did with a gold depository. https:\/\/t.co\/1z25mtgnmu<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) March 29, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Austin has previously hosted the SXSW Crypto Summit<\/b>, Digital Assets and Securities Conference<\/b>, Texas Blockchain Summit<\/b>, Texas Bitcoin Conference<\/b>\u00a0and Bear Arms N\u2019 Bitcoin <\/b>trade show. The city is also expected to be the home of the major crypto-and blockchain-focused Consensus <\/b>conference in June 2022.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Before cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology existed, Austin and the surrounding area had the conditions to make it ripe for opportunity for the right tech firms. Computer manufacturer\u00a0Dell <\/b>is located in nearby Round Rock, and in October, Elon Musk announced he would be moving car manufacturer Tesla<\/b>\u2019s headquarters close to the city\u2019s international airport. Major tech companies including Facebook<\/b>, Google<\/b>, IBM<\/b>, Oracle\u00a0<\/b>and Hewlett Packard<\/b> also have regional offices in Austin.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are just so many different levels where crypto ought to be adopted and I think that the municipalities that jump on early are going to do so much better than those that drag their feet,\u201d says Snow.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if I have a lot of hope for that at a governmental level, but at a personnel level and development team level, I think Austin is pretty exciting and they\u2019ll do well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Once officials in China began cracking down on Bitcoin miners, many firms relocated to Texas for its cheap electricity and seemingly crypto friendly regulations. Austin is home to crypto mining firm Blockcap<\/b>, but other mining companies, including Riot Blockchain<\/b> and Bitdeer Group<\/b> \u2014 an offshoot of Bitmain \u2014 have set up shop in nearby Rockdale. Layer1 Technologies<\/b> and Argo Blockchain <\/b>also built mining facilities in West Texas.<\/p>\n Though many crypto exchanges and companies offering financial products potentially falling under the regulatory umbrella of the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have headquarters in the United States, the city of Austin itself seems to attract more startups dealing with security and blockchain technology than with buying and trading tokens. Companies such as Pinata<\/b>, Titan<\/b>\u00a0and Talos <\/b>have employees based in the city, while Inveniam,<\/b> Factom<\/b>, Multicoin Capital<\/b>, Horizen Labs\u00a0<\/b>and others have local offices.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In February 2014, the first Robocoin Bitcoin ATM in Austin was installed at HandleBar, a bar located downtown. The launch of the machine was one of the first in the United States and preceded companies like Coinsource<\/b> and Bitcoin Depot<\/b> placing crypto ATMs in a variety of locations around the capital city in addition to the gradual acceptance of\u00a0crypto payments <\/b>for goods and services.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Though credit cards, Apple Pay and cash payments are still largely king in the United States, there are many businesses around Austin that accept BTC, including restaurants, grocery stores and photography studios. The supermarket chain H-E-B\u2019s locations in Austin do not host crypto ATMs or accept payments in Bitcoin or Ether yet, but according to Coinmap<\/b>, there are roughly 90 retail outlets in the area that do accept digital assets.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Opening of the second bitcoin ATM in austin Texas! @TexasBitcoin<\/a> @Bitcoin<\/a> @BitcoinNotBombs<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/P5mUeZOUFU<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Paul Snow (@paulsnx2) March 3, 2014<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In Austin, Starbucks, Home Depot, Whole Foods and others accept crypto payments through third-party apps. Aside from the major retail chain stores, a few restaurants in the downtown area and Rainey Street Historic District, including Mai Thai<\/b>, allow Austinites to pay for their food using crypto. However, many of these businesses have shuttered in the last year, likely due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n Like Miami and New York City, Austin currently has its own CityCoin built on Stacks, an open-source network of decentralized applications and smart contracts that use the Bitcoin blockchain as a programmable base layer. The initiative from CityCoins has received public support from both the mayors of Miami and NYC<\/a> for their respective tokens, but Austin Mayor Steve Adler has not yet endorsed a digital coin for the Texas capital city.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Retweet this if you think @MayorAdler<\/a> should welcome CityCoins to Austin, TX. 💪 https:\/\/t.co\/tI5Ped83Ky<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/texasssssssssss-300x200.jpg\")
Crypto culture<\/h4>\n
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Projects and companies<\/h4>\n
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Financial infrastructure<\/h4>\n
Where can I spend crypto?<\/h4>\n
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