Picture this: a sunlit block party in Kansas City, buzzing with artists, musicians, and tech enthusiasts—vendors trade handmade crafts for satoshis, a local band streams live beats paid in real-time bitcoin tips, and curious newcomers pepper bitcoin veterans with questions over smoky barbecue.
This isn’t a utopian daydream. It’s the brainchild of Chris Wenske, a musician-turned-bitcoin-evangelist who’s turning grassroots events into gateways for financial sovereignty.
In 2020, Chris set out to solve a simple problem: How do I sell my music directly to fans without middlemen taking a cut? That question quickly spiraled into founding BitcoinPartyKC, a movement merging art, education, and hardcore bitcoin ethos. 
From wrestling skeptical food truck owners into Lightning Network converts to architecting split-payment systems for artists, Chris has turned Midwestern meetups into blueprints for a decentralized future.
First Steps in Bitcoin
- What initially drew you to bitcoin, and how did that evolve into organizing events and building communities?
I am a musician and I was looking for ways back in 2020 of how to sell my music for bitcoin. My partner and I founded bitcoinpartykc.com to help facilitate technology education and orange pilling through events, music and art.
Event Organization & Grassroots Challenges
- How do you balance your passion for bitcoin with the practicalities of grassroots organizing (e.g., time, funding, skepticism)?
It’s just a lot of hard work. I help organize events for our local Kansas City bitcoiners meetups. Organizing bitcoin centric events and meetups is a 24/7 job, but fulfilling to come up with innovative techniques.
- Walk us through the process of planning a bitcoin/LN event—how do you choose themes, venues, and formats?
I planned and produced the first bitcoin block party in Kansas City with help from the kc bitcoiners and contributors like Swan and Voltage and it was centered around music.
I then build out an artist market for vendors to sell their arts and crafts with bitcoin. And then I called on some of the KC Bitcoiners to help lead presentations, panels and Q and A’s.
- What strategies do you use to attract diverse audiences (e.g., newcomers vs. experts)?
Videos, pictures, interesting graphics. Cold calling, meetings.
- Share a memorable success story or unexpected challenge from an event. How did you adapt?
At our first 2 block parties we had to onboard our food vendor to only use bitcoin. It was a challenge just to teach him about bitcoin. I found some interesting tech to make it work.
I created a split payment system to cover people’s different percentages of payouts. I learned a lot about LNURL at that time.
- How do you measure the impact of your events? Are there metrics or anecdotes you prioritize?
We usually shoot to have a goal of 80-100 people at our bigger events. At our local meetups we average about 10-35 every meetup. The local news came out to our first 2 events and filmed segments. We also have consistent numbers on our Kansas City bitcoiners meetup page.
Community Building & Trust
- What steps do you take to foster trust and collaboration in local bitcoin communities?
Just announcing to the world what new interesting tech I’ve come across. I am really fascinated with base layer bitcoin technology. So I like to seek out projects and analyze what works and what doesn’t. I also maintain consistent meetups in Kansas City that people can rely on.
Trying to create more engaging meetups is a challenge I enjoy. I like finding new ways to collaborate with businesses or come up with an activity, coupled with organizing interesting speakers. We also use digital art and tipping technologies to onboard and orange pill new bitcoin users.
- What methods have worked best for onboarding newcomers, especially those skeptical of bitcoin?
It just depends on who the person is. How technical savvy they are. What technologies they already know how to use in bitcoin. I really think onboarding people with base layer is important so they can do their own research getting into l2’s, l3’s and side chains.
At our block parties we make them totally bitcoin centric. Most everything has to or can be purchased or tipped with bitcoin. Showing an example of what a bitcoin market looks like is a way for newcomers to visualize how bitcoin works.
Lightning Network Projects & Tools
- Describe a Lightning Network project you’ve built or contributed to. What problem does it solve?
I founded the first Bitcoin Block Party in Kansas City in 2022. We used Muun, Phoenix and Blue Wallet to facilitate transactions. We are now working on our 5th this year. I also created a split payment system using Ibex Hub at the time, and then moved on to using BTC Pay Server.
I then worked with Hzrd149 to build a new split payment system for a project I was working on. He then created his version of a javascript split payment system. Creating ways of facilitating payments in bitcoin for artists and musicians is my ultimate goal.
With bitcoin you’re not limited to rules of copyright and the limited ways listening companies such as spotify pays out royalties. Bitcoin creates ways for artists to be paid more valuably than traditional methods.
- What tools or educational resources do you recommend for non-technical users to grasp LN?
I would just try every app you can get your hands on that interests you and try it out. Try and find all the ways it doesn’t work. Try and break it. Try deleting it, try getting your money out of it.
Try everything and see what you like and what you don’t like. Then find or build things that are to your liking. It’s important to understand what you are doing. But most of the time you can only learn by doing.
Go on bitcoin.org and find the list of documentaries. Watch all of them. It is the baseline knowledge standard for where we have come to in bitcoin today.
- How do you approach partnerships with businesses to adopt LN? Share a case study if possible.
I create events and I contact the people I think should collaborate on them. Currently we’re working on our Bitcoin Party KC Export party in Austin Texas slated for March 8th.
So I am working with people from Pleb Lab, Pleb Devs, Unchained and surprise guests such as Supertest for our event. We created a website at bitcoinpartykc.com for people to easily get involved. We also have memberships we’ve created to be first in the know.
Vision & Future Projects
- How do you see LN evolving in the next 5 years, and what role will your projects play?
I think we’ll see a lot of art being sold with new tools that are being developed with LN.
- What upcoming project or initiative are you most excited about?
I have been developing new ways of sharing music using bitcoin. There other other ways out there now that I love but aren’t the concept I wanted to build when I first inspired the split payment system with hzrd. I also launched bitcoinpartykc.com with my partner.
We’ve created some really amazing events. I’m very excited to have Supertestnet at our Austin party. I’m super excited for our Bitcoin Block Party in Kansas City and our Summit later this year.
- How can the broader bitcoin ecosystem better support grassroots initiatives like yours?
More grant funding to people who run successful meetups. We have consistent members who show up every time. Our numbers prove that on our meetup page. Also, more collaboration and help across city to city. - Where can people follow your work or get involved?
They can go to bitcoinpartykc.com and sign up as a member and get tickets to our next events!
