bitcoin++ Berlin lands on 1-3 October 2026 at w3.hub with a payments theme: three days of talks, workshops and a 24-hour hackathon where the goal is literally to make bitcoin move the most money. Tickets start at EUR 315 if you pay in sats.
A Payments Edition With a Working Agenda
The bitcoin++ series has seventeen editions in its archive, and each one picks a technical theme and refuses to wander off it. Berlin 2026 is the payments edition - billed as three days of hacking and building focused on payments on bitcoin, which in practice means Lightning, Cashu, Fedimint and everything else that moves value without asking permission. Doors open at 11:00 AM, talks spread across two stages, and sixteen speakers are accepted into the program so far.
This is not a conference for tourists. The featured talks read like a working engineer's reading list: Erik of Cashu presents building a bitcoin point-of-sale with merchants rather than for them, Janusz demonstrates Lightning payments proven in zero-knowledge, Allen Farrington continues his critique of the fiat payment stack, joschisan covers Fedimint, Jesse Shrader of Amboss Technologies tackles bitcoin's FX layer, and ek shows off smite, a snapshot fuzzing tool for Lightning. The full lineup adds names from BitPolito, TU Wien, BlindBit, Vinteum, Ocean Mining and Kaleidoswap.
The Hackathon: Don't Just Talk, Build
bitcoin++ brings its signature hackathon back to Berlin, and the framing is refreshingly blunt: compete to make it rain the most over a twenty-four hour hacking period. Prizes go to first, second and third place in the open field, judged by a panel still to be announced. The last edition drew thirty-seven projects from ninety hackers, which is exactly the ratio you want - mostly builders, few spectators.
Even if you never touch a keyboard during the competition, walking the project tables is the fastest way to see where open-source bitcoin payments are heading before it shows up in release notes. Submissions from past editions stay archived on the event site, worth a scroll if you want a preview of the room's caliber.
Who Is Backing It
The sponsor list tells you who believes in this crowd. Human Rights Foundation and NYDIG carry headline spots, mempool.space is the title sponsor, Stakwork backs the workshops and Soapbox supports the hackathon. Silver sponsorship comes from Glimpse Markets and Layer2Labs, with Base58, Cake Wallet and LX filling out the general tier. That mix of rights-focused organizations, infrastructure companies and developer education outfits matches the audience almost perfectly.
For attendees, the practical meaning is simple: workshop quality tends to be high when companies whose products depend on competent developers foot the bill for teaching them.
Tickets, Venue and Berlin Logistics
Pricing rewards both conviction and payment method. The all-conference pass costs EUR 315 if you pay with bitcoin - Lightning or on-chain, no card surcharge - or EUR 347 through Stripe. A student and local rate exists at EUR 144, limited, with possible verification at check-in. Prices rise on 1 September 2026, so buying before then saves real money. Every pass covers workshops and talks, lunch and refreshments, satellite events access, and a swag bag.
w3.hub hosts the whole thing, a fitting venue for a conference this deep in open source. A satellites page lists other bitcoin events happening around Berlin during the week - registration may be required separately - and organizers actively accept suggestions for more. Fly in a day early, pick your stages, and save energy for the hackathon demo hour; that is where the best stories usually break.