Blockchain Jungle 2025: More Than Just Pura Vida and Bitcoin?

So they got Peter Todd on a panel to talk about Tether. In Costa Rica. Let that sink in. The whole Blockchain Jungle 2025 event, held November 8-9 at the country’s main convention center, was a study in these bizarre contrasts. A real dog and pony show. On one hand, you had the OGs, the real builders. And on the other… the suits, talking about “institutional adoption.” Again.

Look, the attendance was high, organizers were happy. Fine. But what was actually said? What was the signal amid all the noise?

Putting the Tether discussion with Efraín Barraza and Juan Guerrero aside for a moment—because let’s be honest, that’s a whole can of worms—the real tension was palpable. You had Richard Scotford telling “The Bitcoin Jungle Story,” a genuinely fascinating look at the grassroots bitcoiner ecosystem that sprouted in the south of the country. Real people, real use. A circular economy. Then, in another room, you have panels on “Capital, Compliance & Digital Assets Banking.”

See the disconnect? One is about freedom, the other is about control. The same story, different decade.

The event tried to be everything to everyone. Two stages, The Canopy and Liana, churning out content. Day one felt like a warm-up act. Fernando Quirós on crypto communication, Rogelio H. Umaña on teaching this stuff. Necessary, but not exactly groundbreaking.

Day two, the main event. And it was a mess, a beautiful, chaotic mess of conflicting ideas. Juan Diego Jiménez kicked things off with a deep dive into autonomous RWAs. “When Smart Contracts Start Thinking.” A heady concept, but the question Moi Stern posed later hangs over all of it: “Stop Saying Crypto Has No PMF.” He’s right. People are so busy chasing the next shiny object—AI-infused smart contracts, whatever—they forget to solve actual problems. Stablecoins have PMF. Bitcoin has PMF. Much of the rest? Still TBD. Seriously.

Blockchain Jungle 2025 – Costa Rica. Fuente: Galería Blockchain Jungle.

And then the heavyweights. Phil Zimmermann. The man who gave us PGP. His talk, “Defending Against Autocracy,” was a necessary shot in the arm, a reminder of the cypherpunk roots of this entire industry. A call to protect digital sovereignty. But how many in the audience, busy networking for their next VC round, actually listened? The reality is… probably not enough.

Contrast that with Eli Ben-Sasson of StarkWare talking about “Scaling Bitcoin with STARKs.” Technologically brilliant, no doubt. But I have to say it: this feels like a solution in search of a problem. Layering this level of cryptographic complexity on Bitcoin fundamentally misunderstands its primary value proposition as a simple, robust, ossified base layer. We’re trying to turn a rock into a Swiss Army knife, and it’s a fool’s errand. A fool’s errand, I tell you.

Then you had the regulation panel. Oh, the regulation panel. Moderated by Jason Rojas Cruz, with Juan Carlos Benítez, Kimberly Rosales, Alejandro Muñoz, and Stephanie Sánchez. It was like watching the Diet of Worms all over again—a group of well-intentioned people trying to define and contain a force they don’t fully comprehend. They’ll be debating this in LATAM for the next ten years while the tech leaves them spitting chiclets.

The entire conference was a microcosm of the industry’s identity crisis: are we building a new financial system or just a more efficient back-end for the old one?

Even the AI talks felt… predictable. Marcelo Burman on the future of work, a panel on creativity with Chris Arias, Jorge Salazares, and Luisa Fernanda Sierra. Important conversations, but nothing we haven’t heard before. Meanwhile, Adolfo Arias Echandi from Kölbi was there to talk 5G, a reminder that none of this works without the underlying pipes. The plumbing. A crucial, if unsexy, point.

So, is Costa Rica the next big hub? The organizers certainly think so. The country has the talent and the desire. But this event showed they’re still caught between two worlds. Between the philosophical purity of Álvaro D. María’s talk on Bitcoin and the pragmatic, messy world of RWAs discussed by Patricia Silva, Stephanie Sánchez, and Alberto Chaves at the closing. Between Soren Azorian’s vision of global citizenship and the hard reality of local compliance.

Optimism. Quality content. A growing ecosystem. That’s the official story. But beneath the surface, it’s the same old battle. And it’s far from over.

Este evento es promocionado por CriptoNoticias bajo acuerdo de media partner.