On the day before Norway’s central bank governor delivers her annual address, Bitcoin Policy Institute Norway gathers the public at the National Library in Oslo for the first Satoshi Nakamoto Annual Address – a symbolic bitcoin annual address ahead of Norway’s yearly “fiat” speech.
This year's Satoshi Nakamoto speaker is Thomas Eichenberger, Deputy Group CEO and Chief Strategy Officer of Sygnum Bank in Zurich, a regulated digital-asset‑bank based in Switzerland.
You can sign up for Satoshi Nakamoto's annual speech here.
In Norway, the central bank governor's annual speech has for decades been a regular ritual in the financial calendar, where interest rates, inflation and the outlook for the Norwegian economy are summed up for politicians, the financial industry and the press. Central Bank Governor Ida Wolden Bache will deliver her annual speech on 12 February at 6pm at Norges Bank, the traditional venue for “economic perspectives” and the fiat framework.
With Satoshi Nakamoto's annual speech, the Bitcoin Policy Institute Norway adds a new element to the same timeline: an annual speech on bitcoin, money and technology the night before the official macro and monetary policy narrative. The ambition is to create an open, idea-oriented “vorspiel” to Norges Bank's analysis of the economy — using bitcoin as a prism to discuss long-term shifts in the monetary and financial system.
The annual speech is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, which today serves as a collective term for both the protocol, the universe of ideas around it, and the decentralized infrastructure that has emerged since 2009.
In the invitation, Satoshi Nakamoto's annual speech is explicitly described as a speech about money, technology and society -- not a market talk about price trajectories or short-term speculation.
By adding the event to the National Library, with both physical and digital participation, the organizer signals that this is about public word change and community debate on par with other institutional venues for the exchange of ideas.
Sygnum describes itself as a fully regulated digital asset bank, with a banking licence in Switzerland and licensed operations also in Singapore.
The bank is specialized in services such as trading, custody, staking, lending, active management and tokenization of assets on the blockchain, targeting professional and institutional investors, banks and corporations.
Sygnum positions itself as a link between traditional finance and the crypto economy, with an emphasis on regulation, secure infrastructure and B2B platforms that enable partner banks to provide crypto services to their own clients.
Eichenberger has a background in traditional finance and capital markets, but has in recent years helped build Sygnum's product and services platform in the areas of trading, management, lending and tokenization of digital assets. When he walks on stage in the National Library, it's with a perspective from the intersection of regulated banking and crypto-economics -- relevant to a Norwegian debate that still largely views bitcoin from the outside.
Bitcoin Policy Institute Norway describes itself as a platform to “study bitcoin” and raise the level of debate in Norway, with an emphasis on politics, history and societal impacts rather than product launches and industry PR. In a recent summary of its business, the institute points to how newsletters, podcasts, Satoshi talks and participation in traditional media have helped lift bitcoin onto the national agenda over the past year.
Plans for a “Satoshi Nakamoto maiden speech” and later “annual speech” have been heralded in newsletters since autumn 2025, with a clear link to the timing: the night before the central bank governor's annual speech.
Satoshi Nakamoto's annual speech builds on the format of the “Satoshi Conversation” — a series of events where bitcoin has been discussed at the intersection of constitution, politics, business freedom, environment and culture.
Previous rallies have, among other things, linked bitcoin to the Eidsvöllsmenn and Norwegian constitutional history, to the energy debate and to questions about the place decentralized money can have in a modern welfare society.
Establishing an annual, named annual speech marks a shift from thematic talk nights to a more formalized institute format that can be repeated year after year, in the manner of the central bank speech.
The calendar grab itself is part of the message: Satoshi Nakamoto's annual speech is set for February 11 at 6pm, explicitly referred to as “the day before the central bank governor's annual speech.” For the public in Oslo — from the financial industry and politics to the general public — this provides a two-step sequence in which bitcoin and fiat money are processed one after the other, in two different but parallel formats.
If the annual speech becomes a permanent tradition, bitcoin will thus be assured of an annual stage ahead of Norges Bank's most important speech — something the Bitcoin Policy Institute hopes will help ensure that issues of digital, decentralized money become a more natural part of Norwegian monetary policy public opinion.
