Bitcoin Amsterdam is one of the big European bitcoin gatherings: two days at the Sugar Factory, a few thousand people, and an unusually international crowd. People fly in from across Europe, from the US, from everywhere a bitcoiner can fly in from.
And nearly all of them have the same first problem at Schiphol. The phone connects to a Dutch network, the carrier back home sends a text about roaming charges, and the choice is between paying ten euros a day, hunting for airport wifi, or queueing at a kiosk to hand a passport to a stranger for a plastic SIM.
That is a strange welcome for a crowd that spends the next two days talking about owning your own money and your own data. So we decided to fix the first problem before anyone gets to the second talk.
What attendees get
Every Bitcoin Amsterdam 2026 attendee can claim a free PikaSim eSIM. It is a Europe eSIM, not just a Netherlands one: 1 GB of data, valid for seven days from the first connection, across the Netherlands and more than thirty other European countries, including France and the United Kingdom for anyone routing through Paris or London on the way in or out.
Claiming takes one tap and installing takes one more. There is no form, no email address, no account, and nothing to verify. You tap, the eSIM is yours, and your phone installs it. If 1 GB turns out to be short, the same eSIM can be topped up in Bitcoin, on-chain or over Lightning, straight from the page it was installed from.
The offer is delivered through the conference itself. It appears in the attendee newsletter and in the official Bitcoin Amsterdam app in the days around the event. If you hold a ticket, that is where to look. We are not posting the link anywhere else, on purpose, so that the data goes to the people in the room.
Why we are doing this
PikaSim exists for one reason: mobile data should not require handing over your identity. We sell eSIMs for more than 190 countries, and we never ask who you are. No account, no email, no ID check. You pay in Bitcoin, Lightning, Monero, or a card if you prefer, and you get a QR code. That is the whole relationship.
A conference full of people who already care about that is the right place to show it rather than explain it. A free eSIM that installs in two taps, with no sign-up, makes the point better than any ad could: this is what buying connectivity looks like when nobody is collecting your data.
It also happens to be useful. The data is free to the attendee and the cost is on us. We would rather a few thousand people spend the week with a working phone and a good first impression than spend the same money on a logo on a banner.
How it works under the hood
Every claim hands out a different eSIM, so no two people receive the same one, and an eSIM can only be installed on one phone. One per person is enforced quietly on our side with a limit per device and per connection, which is why the claim page never asks for a name or an email to "prevent abuse". The abuse prevention does not need to know who you are.
The eSIMs are the same Europe plans we sell every day, provisioned the same way, on the same networks. Nothing about the free ones is a cut-down trial. When the week is over, the eSIM simply expires like any other prepaid plan, unless you top it up.
If you are reading this on a phone that already has a PikaSim eSIM from Amsterdam installed: welcome, and thank you for coming. Data usage and top-ups are on the page you installed from, and the PikaSim app shows the same eSIM without an account.
Not at Bitcoin Amsterdam?
The same eSIMs are available to anyone, any day, for any trip. Browse Europe eSIM plans or the regional plans, pay in Bitcoin, Lightning, Monero, or card, and install in a minute. If you are building software that needs to get online on its own, an AI agent can buy one too, with no human in the loop.
And if you run an event where people arrive from abroad and immediately need data, talk to us. This is the second conference we have kept connected this year, and we would like to do more of them.