Publication date: August 27, 2026 · Bitbase Research
Bitcoin Asia is a Bitcoin-only conference held in Hong Kong every August, produced by BTC Inc, the company behind Bitcoin Magazine and the Bitcoin Conference series. It launched in 2024, and it is the only international Bitcoin event that runs a full Chinese-language main stage alongside its English one.
Every major crypto conference claims to be a bridge somewhere. Bitcoin Asia's claim is structural rather than promotional: the Mandarin and Cantonese programme is not a translation booth, it is a parallel main stage. Three years in, the event has become the fixed August marker on the Asian crypto calendar, the way TOKEN2049 owns early October in Singapore and Korea Blockchain Week owns late September in Seoul.
For related Bitbase Research on Hong Kong as a conference city, see 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival: How TradFi Is Rewriting the Main Narrative of Web3.
What Bitcoin Asia is
Bitcoin Asia is an annual Bitcoin conference held in Hong Kong and produced by BTC Inc. The word doing the work in that sentence is Bitcoin. This is not a general crypto or Web3 event: the programme is built around Bitcoin the asset, Bitcoin the protocol, and Bitcoin the corporate treasury instrument. Sessions on stablecoins or tokenised funds do appear, but they appear framed as questions about Bitcoin's position — the 2026 agenda carries a session titled "How Will Stablecoin Regulations Shape Bitcoin's Institutional Adoption in Asia?" and another called "Pragmatic Maximalism: The Market Wants Stablecoins." That framing is the difference from Consensus, which covers crypto, blockchain and AI as one industry.
The audience is deliberately layered, and BTC Inc's ticket structure says so out loud. General admission is described by the organizer as being for developers, enthusiasts, students and newcomers; the GA+ tier for executives, investors, builders and business development; and the top Whale tier for industry leaders, C-suite and VIPs. In June 2025 BTC Inc made general admission free, explicitly to widen participation.
Hong Kong is not an incidental choice either. The city has spent the past three years courting digital-asset business through licensing regimes for exchanges and, more recently, stablecoin issuance, and a conference of this size is one of the visible outputs of that policy. Hong Kong also puts the event within a few hours' flight of the mainland Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian audiences that make up most of its attendance — BTC Inc said roughly half of the first edition's crowd came from mainland China alone. Free general admission compounds that reach: a student in Shenzhen faces a border crossing, not a four-figure ticket.
Who runs Bitcoin Asia — and who owns the organizer
BTC Inc — the legal entity is BTC Media, LLC — has produced Bitcoin Asia since the first edition. What changed in 2026 is who owns BTC Inc.
On February 20, 2026, Nakamoto Inc (Nasdaq: NAKA) completed its acquisition of BTC Inc together with UTXO Management. The transaction was all-stock: 364,795,104 NAKA shares, which the closing announcement valued at $81,632,852 net of option exercise prices, using the February 19 closing price of $0.248. CoinDesk's coverage of the signing carried a $107.3 million figure. Both numbers are correct for what they describe — one is the headline value at signing, the other the net value at closing — and anyone citing a single number for this deal should say which one they mean.
The acquisition disclosure gives a rare public view of the economics of running crypto conferences. It describes BTC Inc as operating 27 media brands with roughly six million social followers. The same disclosure reported that the company's whole conference portfolio — not Bitcoin Asia alone — hosted approximately 67,000 attendee-visits across 2025, a cumulative figure published by the acquirer rather than an audited count. Trailing-twelve-month revenue to September 30, 2025, unaudited, was given as approximately $65.3 million with EBITDA of approximately $20.6 million.
The practical consequence for readers is governance, not gossip. Bitcoin Asia is now produced by a subsidiary of a Nasdaq-listed company, which means its announcements carry forward-looking-statement disclaimers and its parent files with the SEC. That is unusual among crypto conference organizers, most of which are private. David Bailey is chief executive of Nakamoto Inc; Brandon Green is chief executive of BTC Inc.
Where and when each edition has been held
The first edition ran on May 9–10, 2024, at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Hong Kong. BTC Inc reported a turnout of 6,000 attendees and said that roughly half of them travelled from mainland China. Three launches came out of that debut: exSat published its Docking Layer whitepaper, Canaan unveiled the Avalon A1566 miner, and the artist FAR installed a four-sided LED tunnel piece called PARALLAX.
The second edition moved to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and ran on August 28–29, 2025. That edition also produced the messiest set of numbers in the event's short history, which the attendance section below deals with properly. The move from May to late August set the schedule the event has kept since.
The third edition is running as this article publishes, on August 27–28, 2026, again at the HKCEC and presented by Metaplanet. BTC Inc published a target of more than 10,000 attendees, over 150 speakers and representation from more than 125 countries.
The 2026 programme runs across four stages. The Nakamoto Stage is the English main stage. The Genesis Stage is the Chinese-language main stage, with sessions in both Mandarin and Cantonese. The BFC Stage hosts Bitcoin for Corporations, including a corporate treasury symposium on the first morning. The Deep Stage is a smaller VIP room. Running alongside them is an Open Source Hub with hands-on workshops covering Nostr, Frostsnap and Bitshala, plus invitation-only matchmaking through Deal Day and an Institutions & Capital Markets day.
Headline speakers published for the current edition include Changpeng Zhao, now running Giggle Academy; Balaji Srinivasan of Network School; Metaplanet chief executive Simon Gerovich; Morgan Creek Digital's Mark Yusko; and Dr Johnny Ng, a Hong Kong legislator and member of the CPPCC, giving a main-stage keynote.
The published agenda is a reasonable snapshot of what the Bitcoin-only wing of the industry is arguing about. Sovereign and corporate holdings appear through a session on Taiwan's strategic Bitcoin reserve and the Bitcoin for Corporations track; protocol work appears through Stratum V2 and client-implementation sessions; security appears through a post-mortem on the Coldcard exploit and a session on what BTC Inc describes as the first quantum-secure mainnet Bitcoin transaction. Policy runs through the whole thing, with a panel titled "The Global Race for Bitcoin Policy" and an Asia-focused session on how stablecoin rules will shape institutional adoption. The Chinese-language Genesis Stage carries its own versions of these themes, including sessions on retail adoption in Asia and on the next generation of crypto exchange-traded funds.
Bitcoin Asia vs Consensus, TOKEN2049, ETHDenver and Korea Blockchain Week
Four differences hold up against the other four conferences in this series.
Bitcoin Asia is the only single-asset event of the five. Consensus and TOKEN2049 both run as broad industry gatherings; ETHDenver is Ethereum-centric; Korea Blockchain Week is a market gateway rather than an asset-specific event. Being organised around one asset shapes everything from the speaker list to the exhibitor floor.
Bitcoin Asia is the only one with a Chinese-language main stage. The Genesis Stage is a full parallel programme with its own sessions in Mandarin and Cantonese. For a reader in Hong Kong or the mainland, this is the single most consequential difference between Bitcoin Asia and every other international conference on the list.
Bitcoin Asia has kept a developer floor while adding an institutional one. The same event that runs a corporate treasury symposium also runs Stratum V2 sessions and a talk titled "Bitcoin Core Isn't Bitcoin: Understanding Client Implementations." Conferences usually drift from one audience to the other as they scale; this one has so far carried both.
Bitcoin Asia stays in one city. Consensus splits into a February Hong Kong edition and a May North American flagship. TOKEN2049 runs Singapore and Dubai lines. Bitcoin Asia has been held in Hong Kong every year since launch, which makes it the most predictable of the five to plan around.
Moments that mattered
Bitcoin Asia's most reported moment came in 2025, and it had nothing to do with Bitcoin's price.
Ahead of that edition, two prominent Hong Kong figures were withdrawn from the speaker list: Eric Yip Chee-hang, an executive director at the Securities and Futures Commission, and legislator Dr Johnny Ng. Reporting by the South China Morning Post, followed by Bloomberg and Hong Kong Free Press, said both had been advised to avoid appearing alongside headline speaker Eric Trump. Dr Ng publicly cited family matters; the SFC cited travel. The regulator sent a fintech policy manager, Clarence Shen, in Yip's place. Neither BTC Inc nor the individuals have offered any public explanation connecting the withdrawals to the headline booking, and this article does not draw that inference — but the episode is the clearest illustration of a real tension the event sits inside: Hong Kong wants to be a digital-asset hub and simultaneously wants distance from certain political associations.
Two smaller things are worth recording. BTC Inc described the 2025 edition as the second-largest Bitcoin event in the world, behind its own Las Vegas flagship. And the 2024 debut produced genuine product news rather than only panels, which is not something every first-year conference manages.
Dr Ng returns to the current programme as a headline main-stage keynote speaker.
How many people actually attend Bitcoin Asia
Conference attendance figures are among the least reliable numbers published in this industry, and Bitcoin Asia's own history is a clean case study.
Three different figures were published about the 2025 edition, all traceable to BTC Inc. Ahead of the event the organizer said 15,000 attendees were expected. On the opening day, the South China Morning Post quoted the organizer saying more than 17,000 tickets had been issued. After it closed, the organizer said more than 20,000 passes had been sold.
None of those three numbers is wrong, and none of them can be swapped for another. An expectation published before the doors open, a count of tickets issued on day one, and a total of passes sold across the whole event are three different measurements of three different things. A reader who sees "20,000" with no label has been handed a number without a unit.
Two general rules follow, and this series applies them throughout.
First, every scale figure is organizer-reported unless stated otherwise. No independent audit of crypto conference attendance exists. When this article says BTC Inc reported 6,000 attendees in 2024, the phrase "BTC Inc reported" is carrying real weight, not padding.
Second, where sources conflict, both numbers get printed. Elsewhere in this series that rule bites harder than it does here: ETHDenver's 2022 edition has two attendance figures, roughly 13,000 and roughly 9,000, both of which came from the organizing side. Both get listed and neither gets picked.
One caution is specific to this event: third-party conference aggregators have republished 2025's figures against the current edition. Where our numbers differ from an aggregator's, we are using what BTC Inc published for that specific year.
Frequently asked questions
When and where is Bitcoin Asia held? Bitcoin Asia is held annually in Hong Kong. The first edition ran in May 2024 at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal; since 2025 it has been held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, in late August. Exact dates are announced by BTC Inc for each edition.
Is Bitcoin Asia free to attend? General admission has been free since June 2025, when BTC Inc introduced free GA to widen participation. Paid tiers still exist above it: a GA+ tier aimed at executives, investors and business development, and a top Whale tier aimed at C-suite and VIPs. Prices are set per edition and rise on site.
How many people attend Bitcoin Asia? BTC Inc reported 6,000 attendees at the 2024 debut and published a target of more than 10,000 for 2026. For 2025 the organizer published three different figures — 15,000 expected, more than 17,000 tickets issued, more than 20,000 passes sold — which measure three different things. No independent audit of these numbers exists.
Is Bitcoin Asia only about Bitcoin? Yes. Bitcoin Asia is a Bitcoin-only conference, unlike Consensus or TOKEN2049, which run as broad industry events. Other assets do appear on the agenda, but framed as questions about Bitcoin's position — for example how stablecoin regulation affects Bitcoin's institutional adoption in Asia.
Are there sessions in Chinese? Yes. The Genesis Stage is a full Chinese-language main stage with sessions in both Mandarin and Cantonese, running in parallel with the English Nakamoto Stage. This is the feature that most distinguishes Bitcoin Asia from other international Bitcoin conferences.
Who owns Bitcoin Asia? Bitcoin Asia is produced by BTC Inc, the publisher of Bitcoin Magazine. Since February 2026, BTC Inc has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc, which trades on the Nasdaq under NAKA. That makes Bitcoin Asia one of the few major crypto conferences run by a subsidiary of a publicly listed company.
References
[1] BTC Inc, "Bitcoin Asia Conference Massive Success," Bitcoin Magazine press release, May 2024. btcmedia.prowly.com
[2] BTC Inc, "Bitcoin Asia 2025 Takes Over Hong Kong Next Week as the Largest of Its Kind in Asia," press release, August 2025. btcmedia.prowly.com
[3] BTC Inc, "Bitcoin Asia Adds CZ to Speaker Lineup, Full Conference Agenda Released," press release, 2026. btcmedia.prowly.com
[4] Bitcoin Asia, official agenda and speaker pages, asia.b.tc, accessed August 27, 2026. asia.b.tc
[5] Nakamoto Inc, "Nakamoto Inc Completes Acquisition of BTC Inc and UTXO Management," company update, February 2026. nakamoto.com
[6] Nakamoto Inc, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, February 2026. sec.gov
[7] CoinDesk, "Bitcoin Treasury Company Nakamoto to Acquire BTC Inc and UTXO in $107 Million All-Stock Deal," February 2026. coindesk.com
[8] South China Morning Post, "Bitcoin Asia Kicks Off in Hong Kong, Aims to Balance Crypto Hub Goal With Risk Mitigation," August 2025. scmp.com
[9] South China Morning Post, "Hong Kong Official and Lawmaker Pull Out of Bitcoin Asia 2025 Featuring Eric Trump," August 2025. scmp.com
[10] Bloomberg, "HK Official Skips Crypto Event to Avoid Eric Trump," August 2025. bloomberg.com
[11] Hong Kong Free Press, "Hong Kong Finance Official, Lawmaker Withdraw From Bitcoin Event Featuring Eric Trump as Headline Speaker," August 2025. hongkongfp.com
[12] BTC Inc, "Bitcoin Asia Rolls Out Free General Admission to Broaden Access to 2025 Conference," press release, June 2025. btcmedia.prowly.com
Disclaimer: This article is editorial coverage from Bitbase Research about an industry event, provided for information only. Bitbase is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by this event or its organizers. Attendance, speaker and sponsorship figures are as published by the organizers and have not been independently audited. Nothing here constitutes investment, trading, tax, or financial advice. Event details such as dates, venues and speaker line-ups can change, so refer to the official event sources for the latest information.