Why Retro in Bratislava? Why Zcash?

By Bitcoin je retro March 23, 2026 · Edited March 24, 2026

Story behind Bitcoin is Retro in 2017, why Bratislava is perfect location for this cryptoanarchism. See you 25th April in Bratislava, Slovakia!

Freedom Without Privacy Is Not Freedom
Zero-Knowledge Proofs: A Technology Beyond Cryptoanarchy
Zodl: When Technology Becomes Usable
Zcash vs. Monero
Bitcoin is Retro 2026
Bitcoin is Retro: Why Now? Why Here?
Why Central Europe
Bratislava Vaporwave: An Aesthetic of the Moment

Why Bitcoin is Retro! 2026 Conference — and a Bit About Zcash.

In 2017, we organized the first edition of the Bitcoin is Retro! conference as Slovak Students for Liberty, in collaboration with Progressbar hackerspace and the emerging Paralelná Polis Bratislava. At the time, the event had no ambition of becoming a recurring series—but its time has come again.

On Saturday, April 25, in Bratislava at A4, we will gather once more for Bitcoin is Retro, featuring guests such as Frank Braun, Juraj Bednár, Mário Havel, Juraj Karpiš and other speakers. The will also include the live music, and massages throughout the conference, and special edition of Stations of the Cross of Bitcoin!

Back in 2017, the concept was a provocative cry into the void—at a moment when people were beginning to flood into Bitcoin not only for freedom, but increasingly for its rising price. Austrian economists celebrated Bitcoin as the future of money; we, however, were also playing with a different idea: Bitcoin is great, but it is not the end of the journey. Just look at what is being built around it—especially here in Central Europe. This is only the beginning. A revolution in thinking about money after a long era of centralized systems; a shift from hierarchical control toward peer-to-peer relationships; a move from coercion to voluntarism.

Cryptoanarchist Jan Hubík captured this trajectory back in 2017 on the Show of Jan Kraus with his now-iconic line: “Bitcoin is retro—and Zcash is being mined.”

This time, we are embracing not only Bitcoin, but also other technologies—including Zcash.

Freedom Without Privacy Is Not Freedom

Austrian economics teaches us that truly free markets require voluntary transactions between participants. Friedrich Hayek described the price system as a mechanism for communicating information—information relevant only to those directly involved in a transaction.

Now imagine that every transaction you make is permanently and immutably recorded on a public ledger, visible to anyone with an internet connection and sufficiently advanced chain analysis tools. That is not a free market.

Privacy is not a feature for those who “have something to hide” (those people will always find ways, even in a KYC/AML world—and we’re not interested in aligning with them anyway). Privacy is a fundamental condition for free exchange. Trade is a form of communication, an exchange of information. Just as you wouldn’t want your private messages read by anyone, commerce is simply another layer of information exchange.

Imagine paying a supplier in Bitcoin. Your competitor can instantly analyze the entire transaction—amount, frequency, and flow of funds. They can infer your cash flow, margins, and customer base. Banking secrecy laws and GDPR exist because societies understand that business confidentiality is foundational to functioning markets. Public blockchains systematically erode that confidentiality—though there are cases where transparency is desirable. (To be fair, Bitcoin is evolving privacy-enhancing layers, and as Frank Braun notes, projects like Fedimint or Cashu may see broader adoption.)

As Frank Braun writes in his (non-)investment thesis on Zcash:
“Commerce simply doesn’t work without privacy. Just as HTTP needed an encryption layer (HTTPS) before the web became viable for business, the payment layer needs privacy to function properly.” In this sense, anonymized transactions—and Zcash—are the HTTPS of the cryptocurrency world.

Zero-Knowledge Proofs: A Technology Beyond Cryptoanarchy

We were genuinely pleased to see how much Zcash technology had matured—and that it had become, finally, cryptoanarchist-friendly.

Zcash uses zero-knowledge proofs (specifically zk-SNARKs) to conceal the sender, recipient, and transaction amount. In practice, the blockchain reveals only that a transaction occurred—nothing more.

Within the Zcash ecosystem, there are two types of addresses and transactions:

t → t: transparent transactions, similar to Bitcoin
s → s: shielded transactions, fully private within the shielded pool

And two operations:

t → s (shielding): moving funds from the public ledger into the shielded pool
s → t (unshielding): moving funds back

Crucially, shielded transactions in Zcash offer the strongest possible on-chain privacy from a cryptographic standpoint. As Frank Braun highlights, many cryptographers agree: Zcash’s shielded transactions provide stronger privacy guarantees than standard Monero transactions.

The historical criticism of Zcash—the so-called “trusted setup”—applied to older pools (Sprout, Sapling). The current Orchard pool eliminates this concern. Today, this critique is largely outdated, though still nostalgically repeated by critics.

Zodl: When Technology Becomes Usable

Like Jano Gordulič once complained about Bitcoin—that it needed to be simpler and more user-friendly so even a grandmother could use it—the biggest issue with Zcash was never the technology, but usability. Historically, only a small fraction of ZEC was held in shielded pools. Why? Clunky wallet solutions that required users to actively opt into privacy.

Zodl changes this.

Every transparent UTXO must be shielded before it can be spent. In other words, Zodl nudges users into the shielded pool automatically—privacy becomes the default behavior, not an optional feature. The result? Over the past year, the amount of ZEC in shielded pools has more than doubled. Nearly 14% of the circulating supply now sits in the Orchard pool—and the trend is rising. Integration with the Keystone hardware wallet now allows users to store and spend Orchard Zcash securely. This matters. As Frank Braun points out, privacy at rest is more important than privacy in flight. The longer funds remain in the shielded pool, the harder it becomes to deanonymize them through transaction timing and amount correlations. Funds “mix” over time—the longer, the better.

(If you use privacy tools merely to “clean” transaction history—sending in a certain amount and withdrawing the same—then no matter how strong the privacy tech is, matching inputs and outputs can still deanonymize you.)

Zcash vs. Monero

A common critique is: “Monero is better because it’s private by default.”

Zcash operates as a dual-layer system: a shielded pool and a transparent ledger. Transparent addresses (t-addresses) allow much easier integration with the broader DeFi ecosystem—exchanges, DEXs, custody providers. Supporting t-addresses is essentially porting Bitcoin code.

This is why more DEXs support ZEC than XMR—and no cross-chain liquidity pool DEX supports Monero.

Optional transparency is a feature, not a bug. If you need auditability—say, as a custody provider—you can use t-addresses, while still holding private funds in the same wallet.

Technically, Monero uses ring signatures—mixing outputs within a limited set. While amounts are hidden, tracing is still more feasible than in Zcash, where the anonymity set grows significantly: any transaction can theoretically spend any funds ever present in the pool.

Bitcoin is Retro 2026

In 2017, Bitcoin was “retro” because it was underestimated and not yet mainstream. In 2026, Bitcoin is traded on Wall Street, part of national reserves, and embedded in legal and financial systems. But culture has shifted: true financial privacy has become a rebellious act.

This year’s conference embraces the idea that privacy coins, zero-knowledge proofs, and tools like Zcash represent what Bitcoin was originally meant to be—untraceable and truly free. Freedom requires tools—and tools evolve.

Zcash today comes closest to the cryptoanarchist vision: unstoppable private money. Money that behaves like cash—without trace, without surveillance, without permission.

Bitcoin remains our gateway and our foundation—the currency with which we bought our first coffees in Paralelná Polis and reshaped not just our financial thinking, but our lives.

But what’s happening around it is fascinating.

If cryptocurrencies are to function as true free money—not merely digital gold sitting in institutional vaults—we must address privacy:

at the protocol level
at the wallet level
at the cultural level

Bitcoin is Retro brings together old-school cryptoanarchists and a new generation of privacy advocates in Slovakia. Our thesis is simple: Bitcoin has become mainstream and institutional—but the original cypherpunk values of privacy, censorship resistance, and individual sovereignty are more relevant than ever. Privacy technologies like zero-knowledge proofs and Zcash are the continuation of that revolution.

Bitcoin is Retro: Why Now? Why Here?

The regulatory environment is shifting—and not in favor of freedom.

AML regulations in the EU are intensifying. MiCA has led to the delisting of privacy coins from European exchanges. Banks spend enormous resources on compliance. People struggle to buy property if their funds originate from crypto. KYC/AML databases are frequently hacked or compromised. Your financial data is scattered across systems accessible to countless actors—including underpaid bureaucrats and flawed infrastructures.

Physical attacks on crypto holders are increasing, often leveraging leaked KYC data from exchanges, verification services, or even tax authorities.

Protecting yourself no longer means just encryption—it means concealing what you own.

The timing is not accidental.

Why Central Europe

We organize Bitcoin is Retro! in Central Europe for a reason.

Our region carries a living memory of 40 years of totalitarianism—central planning, surveillance, currency reforms, restricted movement, and suppressed individual freedom. Here, the loss of economic freedom and privacy is not an abstract concept—it is lived history.

The original 2017 conference took place in the legendary Bratislava bar Luna—a symbolic space. During socialism, secret police drank in the basement, while upstairs, black-market traders operated. A physical metaphor of parallel systems: official power below, free exchange above.

In 2026, we continue exploring parallel systems—not as rebellion for its own sake, but as experimentation with voluntary, decentralized coordination enabled by Bitcoin and related technologies.

Bratislava Vaporwave: An Aesthetic of the Moment

The conference’s visual identity is not decorative—it is conceptual. Designed by Veronika Počarovská, it is rooted in “Bratislava Vaporwave.”

Vaporwave, an internet-born aesthetic from around 2010, evokes retrofuturism and suspended time. In today’s uncertain political landscape, we feel as if we are waiting in an airport lounge, watching what comes next.

Key symbols include:

A socialist-era UFO sculpture—representing persistent patterns of economic centralization
A floppy disk and old computer—reminders that revolutionary technologies quickly become retro
A vaporwave-colored pigeon—symbolizing resilience

Crypto markets, prediction markets, reputation systems, smart contracts, and privacy layers together form the foundation of a more resilient parallel economy.