Bitcoin in Berlin

The Bitcoin whitepaper describes a payment system that works without a trusted third party. That is the first property a professional investor looks at: a bitcoin held in its own wallet is a bearer asset with no counterparty, unlike a bank deposit, a bond or a fund share, where someone owes you something. The second property is the fixed supply. Bitcoin Core rejects any amount above 21 million coins, and the issuance schedule is in the code every node runs, so no parliament in Berlin and no central bank in Frankfurt can raise it.

Those two properties put bitcoin in a group of its own. Gold has no counterparty either, but its supply grows every year with mining output. Equities and bonds carry the risk of the company or the state behind them. Bitcoin carries neither issuer risk nor supply growth beyond its schedule, and that is why allocators who hold it give it a separate line in the portfolio, sized on its own volatility. The bitcoin in Germany page adds the ETF flows and the German market view.

No counterparty also means no one to call. If you lose the private key or the seed phrase, the coins are gone, and a transfer sent to the wrong address cannot be reversed. The price is volatile because supply cannot react to demand. ESMA warns that investors can lose the full amount they put into crypto-assets and that no compensation scheme covers them.

Banks face a capital rule on top. The Basel Committee standard for bank cryptoasset exposures puts bitcoin in the group of unbacked crypto-assets with a risk weight of up to 1,250 percent. A bank can sell bitcoin to customers through its app, but it holds very little on its own balance sheet.

Berlin is where German bitcoin rules are written and argued over. The Bundestag and the Federal Ministry of Finance decide the tax rule for private investors: under section 23 of the Einkommensteuergesetz, a gain on bitcoin held for more than one year is tax free, and a ministry draft would replace that with a flat withholding tax. Supervision is done elsewhere, by BaFin in Bonn and Frankfurt, under the EU's MiCA regulation.

The Bitcoin Bundesverband, the German Bitcoin Association, was founded in the German Bundestag in Berlin and recorded its founding in bitcoin block 862968. It speaks for companies in the bitcoin industry toward politicians in Berlin and Brussels. Its stated goals include tax relief for bitcoin, support for bitcoin mining and rules that let bitcoin work as a means of payment and a store of value. Finance Loop is one of its founding members.

Berlin's bitcoin history starts in a bar. Room 77 in Kreuzberg was one of the first places in the world where you could pay for a beer in bitcoin. The bar closed during the pandemic.

The meetups outlived it. Bitcoin Berlin meets on the third Wednesday of the month at Holzmarkt and calls itself the oldest bitcoin meetup in the world; the Einundzwanzig portal lists further Berlin groups. During Berlin Blockchain Week the city also hosts bitcoin talks and side events next to the Ethereum and web3 program.

Finance Loop is a founding member of the Bitcoin Bundesverband and a member of Bundesblock, the Berlin-based Blockchain Bundesverband. Its Bitcoin for Investors masterclass runs in Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich for asset managers, family offices and advisors who want the asset class case, the custody models and the portfolio math in one day. The bitcoin seminar in Berlin page has the details of the Berlin dates. During the German Blockchain & AI Week 2025, which Finance Loop supported, the Satoshi Nakamoto Forum in Berlin was a bitcoin-only evening with talks and the premiere of the documentary Take the Orange Pill.

Finance Loop events in Berlin bring people from banks and asset managers together with bitcoin and crypto founders, IT people and AI engineers. For the rest of the Berlin crypto scene see crypto in Berlin and finance in Berlin.

You can buy a bitcoin ETP through any German securities account, buy bitcoin in the app of many Sparkassen and cooperative banks, or use a crypto exchange with a MiCA license. A bitcoin ATM in Berlin must have a BaFin license: in one nationwide raid BaFin seized 13 crypto ATMs run without one. Whatever route you pick, decide first who holds the keys.

Yes, several. Bitcoin Berlin meets monthly at Holzmarkt and calls itself the oldest bitcoin meetup in the world, and more groups are listed on the Einundzwanzig portal and on Meetup. Finance Loop events in Berlin are for professionals who work on bitcoin in finance.

Berlin has no single large bitcoin conference; bitcoin talks run inside Berlin Blockchain Week and at meetups across the year. Current bitcoin and crypto events in Berlin, with dates, are in the calendar above.

It works on politics. The Bitcoin Bundesverband was founded in the Bundestag and lobbies politicians in Berlin and Brussels for tax relief and clear rules for bitcoin. Its imprint gives Potsdam as its registered seat.