Born in the heart of Texas, Pleblab.dev is a well-known name for Bitcoin startups. Still, most people who have heard of this niche Bitcoin community in Austin probably don’t know their victory and influence.
Starting in 2021 by several Bitcoin enthusiasts as a coworking space for the capital factory, Pleblab has grown into a mecca for the US Bitcoin startup ecosystem. They hosted a variety of events and meetups throughout the year, making it a reliable work environment for Bitcoiners, whether they live in Austin or just go through.
“At the art school, we had this professor who created an hour, roamed and gave us honest feedback on each other’s work, creating a collaborative atmosphere where we could grow together. Car González, CEO of Pleblab, recalls. So when I took over Pleblab, I asked: “How do you make it more cooperative? Not just coworking, but how can you make it?” When you say coworking, it’s literally just working. How boring is it? That’s not interesting. ”
However, rather than just a “coworking” space, Pleblab has become a “community accelerator in the Bitcoin era” and has been experienced by several successful Bitcoin companies and developer celebrities since its inception.
Genesis
Founded from a dream of growing a community based on Bitcoin, Pleblab acquired its first office in 2021 at Capital Factory, Austin’s renowned tech coworking hub. In it, various entrepreneurs and Bitcoin developers began to stick and ask them to work with them from the capital factory.
Over time, Pleblab has grown into a variety of office locations. It is currently located next to Unchained Capital Offices and Bitcoin Park (formerly Bitcoin Commons) in downtown Austin (6th St. and Congress Ave.). With more space, talent and experience, Pleblab has transformed from a coworking space to a mix of hacker garages and startup incubators.
Today, they provide a wealth of resources to various membership packages, mentorships, and startups that participate in them, which can be denied membership depending on the goals and objectives of the project. It’s more like a private Bitcoin club for builders and technicians than anything else.
“I really think we’re an accelerator in the Bitcoin era. How to do it in open source, Cypherpunk’s way doesn’t give someone 500k on the first day and say, “You’ll make it or meet you later for three months.” To me, it sounds like it was in the Fiat era,” the car said.
Main Event
The main event held by Pleblab is Top Builder and Startup Day. It often takes place within six months of each other.
“Top builders are the top chefs of Bitcoin. They find the latest and best builders, stack them up and try to build something that can be MVP or pitched,” says Car, explaining events that work like a three-month hackathon and expose finalists to VCS and angel investors.
Meanwhile, Startup Day is a short meeting that provides a platform for Bitcoin startups to showcase their jobs, meet talent and get exposed in the Bitcoin world. In the words of the car, “It is intended to encourage people to build their own company from the bystanders. They will see themselves in the people talking on stage.”
judge it by the fruit
Various celebrities from the Bitcoin startup world spent time at Pleblab, and the car was very hesitant to trust other people’s jobs.
“Their journeys start with a handshake from the people they meet, and look at the numbers they have, and when they get to a point like base camp, raise, seed, or seed, they shake their journey,” the car said. “For me, that base camp is just ‘cool, they did it.’ Well, that’s what I love: shipping the code, we try to be a good steward. ”
Nevertheless, the track record is impressive. Here’s a quick overview of the famous Bitcoin projects, companies and developers closely related to Pleblab.
Jippi – Winners of Top Builder 2025
Headed by Oliver, Jippi.App is a beautiful and fun Bitcoin app designed with Gen Z in mind. Reflecting the success of Pokemon Go, Zippi invites young people to explore the city in search of Bitcoin beasts. Awaiting future owners with SAT rewards, charming little 3D creature hidden in augmented reality.
The app has been developed for over a year and won the first prize last week for fierce competition at Pleblab’s Top Builder Competition. Surprisingly to the judges and audience, Jippi has live, functional apps, street research and app testing at local universities. In addition to a stunning presentation of Jippi’s rationale and vision, the app could potentially go viral in the US.
Stacker.News
In 2021, one of Keyan Kousha, co-founder of Pleblab, Stacker.News, became the news hub for many tech-savvy Bitcoiners. Boasting Reddit with open source lightning, the platform has a strong, active, loyal fanbase that rewards each other with SAT with all the upvotes, and is often faster to integrate the latest technology into the Bitcoin social media technology scene.
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Started by John McGill at the end of 2021, Zaprite quickly grew into the business’s full payment processing suite, supporting both Bitcoin and Lightning payment rails, settling in Fiat as merchants wanted, supporting event tickets and all the accounting and invoice tools needed by modern merchants.
Zaplite made recent history with Donald J. Trump, the interface used to pay for burgers along with Bitcoin at a Bitcoin Pub Key in New York.
(Trump buys hamburgers with Bitcoin from Zaprite – embedded)
Rebellion Wallet
Released in early 2023 and led by celebrity Bitcoin developers Ben Carman and Tony Giorgio, Mutiny Wallet quickly gained popularity among Lightning Power users as a completely distinctive, innovative Bitcoin app. It consistently integrates cutting-edge payment technology, including payments and Nost integration that e-cash has rejected, shaking the red and black color schemes of its signatures.
Following the arrest of the Samourai wallet developer and its resulting chilling effect on the development of Bitcoin’s independent wallet, Mutiny Wallet announced it would be the sunset of the project.
Nifty (Bitcoin++)
As a developer of Bitcoin and Lightning, Nifty has become famous for her developer education activities, bringing her world-renowned developer event called Bitcoin++, her relentless work ethic, her impressive travel schedule and of course, her charm, bringing together the Bitcoin developer community several times around the world.
Nifty has become a perceived and influential figure in the Bitcoin startup ecosystem, including seats on OpenSat boards. It is a public charity focused on funding all types of open source Bitcoin projects, with a special focus on Nostr – Bitcoin native social media protocols. On her journey to stardom, she spent quite a bit of time at Pleblab, but is still common at Austin Bitcoin events.
Speaking of which, Nifty’s next Bitcoin++ event will be diving deep into Bitcoin memory in Austin, Texas, May 7-9.
Super Test
SuperTestNet, an early member of Plelab and Bitcoin’s Austin scene, came out of nowhere in 2021 and quickly mastered the art of prototyping Bitcoin with JavaScript. He has since implemented cutting edge Bitcoin technology like BITVM, and has participated in the first Ark Mainnet pool, the only other non-circular Bitcoin Layer 2 scaling solution, and is an avid user of X and Nostr.
SuperTestNet’s many open source projects, their passion for Bitcoin, and their unwavering integrity, have given them quick recognition in the Bitcoin startup ecosystem, and perhaps quite a few mentions in the chronicles of Bitcoin’s history.
Cass Clot
Headed by Jim, an AI engineer and ruthless Bitcoin Maxi, CASCDR’s mission is to combine the power of AI and Bitcoin with a powerful privacy foundation and a complete suite of cool AI apps and workflows. His latest hit is upplthatupjamie.ai. AI is a podcast search engine that transcription of audio content, becomes searchable, and facilitates the creation of shareable podcast clips.
Sudden
Leading by Keith, Branta is a cybersecurity company that focuses on limiting mid-term attacks for Bitcoin payments, including malicious addresses and bill injections at merchant interfaces. Cultivated by Pleblab Accelerator, Branta has already successfully received a pre-seeding salary increase and was a top five finalist in the Top Builder Contest.
Tocker
Topher, his own well-known Bitcoin developer and a regular at Pleblab, has shipped a variety of open source Bitcoin tools, including Tapscript, Taproot, Schnorr Signatures, and libraries that manage Bitcoin transactions.
Above all, Topher and Austin (App Developer) are currently working on Frostr, the leading private digital identity management solution. Specifically, FroStr is built to solve the problem of Nostr, a Bitcoin Adjacent Social Network Protocol that is very popular among Bitcoin users. Rethinking “frost,” the new rising multi-signature standard for Bitcoin wallets, and using it to solve Nostr’s major rotation problems. It’s a bit of a tech project, but what I believe is very useful and I’ll soon be covering more in detail.
Christopher David, Open Agent
A veteran Bitcoin developer and entrepreneur, Christopher is currently working on an open agent. It is an AI platform with deep integration with the GIT process, shaking the aesthetics of dark cypherpunk and focusing on user privacy.
There are many more projects that have passed PLEBLAB during development or over the years. If you’re interested, you can find it on Pleblab.dev.
As a bonus, I’ll leave this cool to you Bitcoin Magazine I happened to find it on pleblab.
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