Sunny Ray sits down with Daniel Carlin, founder and organizer of the Canadian Bitcoin Conference, to trace his path from Irish mechanical engineer to Bitcoin community builder. Carlin explains how he emigrated from Ireland to Canada after the 2008 financial crash, built a two decade career working on buildings in Toronto, London and Saudi Arabia including the NEOM megaproject, and gradually adopted sound money principles after watching Toronto real estate overheat and studying voices like Max Keiser and Robert Kiyosaki. He describes losing money in Celsius and gaining it in Dogecoin before settling into long term Bitcoin conviction around 2020 to 2021. With no finance or tech background, Carlin partnered with his wife Manuela, a professional event planner, to launch the Canadian Bitcoin Conference in 2023, filling a gap in Eastern Canada. Now entering its fourth year, the conference is moving back to Toronto for 2026 after two years in Montreal, and the couple is expanding into a media company. Carlin reflects on relationship building, community, and giving back as the driving forces behind the event's growth.
An Irish Canadian engineer turned Bitcoin conference founder shares his journey from post-2008 Ireland to building Canada's top Bitcoin event.
Can you give people a top level introduction to who you are and the Canadian Bitcoin Conference?
I'm Daniel Carlin, organizer and founder of the Canadian Bitcoin Conference. I'm originally from Ireland, Irish Canadian, and came to Canada after the 2008 financial crash hit Ireland hard. I've been in the GTA and a Bitcoiner for about 8 to 10 years. I'm an engineer by trade, and I started the conference back in 2023 as a way to get a foot in the Bitcoin space and be part of the community.
What's your engineering background? How long have you been practicing?
I'm a mechanical engineer, nearly two decades now, graduated around 2007 back in Ireland. I started working on old buildings downtown Toronto like 900 Bay, along College and Yonge, Front Street, CBC buildings, Union Station. I love the challenge of going into an old building, figuring out how things work and fixing problems. I've also done work in the UK, London, and more recently Saudi Arabia.
Are you able to share the project you were working on in Saudi Arabia?
Yeah, it's not under wraps. The NEOM project is the big one, an ambitious project by the Saudi PIF. They have The Line, Trojena which is a ski resort in the mountains, and Oxagon, an industrial city near Duba. It's really interesting to watch, though I think they're having some budgetary, technological and work related challenges at the moment.
Was money something you thought a lot about before Bitcoin, or did that start once you found it?
I think the penny dropped early listening to Max Keiser, hearing that engineers spend half their time engineering and the other half worrying about economics because the pay isn't enough. Coming from post-2008 Ireland, I was already buying property, silver and gold. Eventually the silver market felt manipulated, and around 2013 to 2014 I started coming onto Bitcoin.
Was there a specific moment you realized Bitcoin was something big, or was it more of a slow burn?
It was a slow burn. I went through 2017 and 2018 volatility, made some money on Dogecoin, lost money in Celsius. Watching Toronto real estate overheat from 2012 to 2020 reminded me of Ireland in 2008, and I connected it back to money printing and currency debasement. By 2020 to 2021 I really understood that Bitcoin and sound money principles were the way to go.
How did you go from believing in Bitcoin to actually starting a conference around it?
I wanted to contribute to the space but wasn't in finance or tech, so I thought about playing to my strengths. My wife Manuela is a professional event planner who's run big events for insurance companies, and there wasn't really a Bitcoin event in Eastern Canada at the time. So we decided to do a conference together, and it's given me direct access to an amazing community of Bitcoiners.
Is it true you're bringing the conference back to Toronto next year?
Yeah, we've had it in Montreal for a couple years and grown it significantly there, but a lot of people weren't able to travel this year, and there's a big Bitcoin community in Toronto. So we're planning to bring it back, no contract signed yet, but the timing is probably end of September or early October 2026.
Three years in, where are you now compared to where you started with the conference?
At the start we didn't know if it would be worthwhile. We've built really good relationships with companies and the community, added people to our team, and we're now working on a media company alongside the conference. We want to keep growing, possibly have more than one event across Canada, and be a real presence for Bitcoin here.
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