Gareth Grobler
Gareth Grobler is a South African Bitcoin advocate with over a decade in the space. He co-founded one of Africa's earliest cryptocurrency platforms in 2012 and is now building Layerz Wallet - a beginner-friendly self-custodial wallet supporting Lightning, Liquid, Ark, Spark and emerging Bitcoin layers. Passionate about grassroots adoption and intuitive onboarding in emerging markets, Gareth is a husband, father, and dedicated kitesurfer committed to making Bitcoin accessible for everyday users across Africa.
Sessions
In this talk, Gareth Grobler, co-founder of Layerz Wallet, builds on effective onboarding strategies like those shared by Santosh Vadivelu - using relatable, everyday analogies to introduce Bitcoin's core properties (scarcity, unbreakable ownership, and lasting value) without buzzwords or immediately framing it as 'money.'
Bitcoin’s base layer prioritizes security and decentralization, but this comes with strict limits on throughput and latency. As Bitcoin adoption grows, second-layer solutions are becoming essential to scale usage without compromising core properties.
This panel explores the current landscape of Bitcoin scaling approaches, including the Lightning Network, transaction batching techniques, and emerging Layer 2 designs. Panelists will discuss architectural tradeoffs around custody, trust assumptions, liquidity, finality, and user experience, highlighting where different solutions excel, where they fall short, and what open questions remain for scaling Bitcoin sustainably.