Status: Uncertain

The lease held by the Room’s proprietor and captain (Jörg Platzer) expired on March 31, 2021. The building Room 77 is located in was scheduled to be renovated, but instead the management company offered a new 4 year lease at 3,200 EUR / month.

In order to prevent Room 77 from closing for good, some community members schemed up the “unusual proposal” below. The Room is completely cleaned out and empty at the moment.

Room 77, a clean slate

Due to the very exciting support of the community (20x monthly members and 2.56 btc) we decided to persue getting the new lease 😃

The support we received in written (and spoken pledges) is mostly from people in the Berlin community. Based on todays BTC/EUR price, supporters have pledged enough for 4 years of rent, operational costs, and basic remodeling.

We are in discussion and submitting our proposal to the management company of the building this week. Unfortunately, it is not certain if the new lease will go to us or if it will go to another (non-bitcoin) business 😟

We are doing are best 🤞 🤞 We are very grateful for the support.

Concept & Plan

The following is a mashup of different components that will evolve with the community over time.

🍻 The Bar

Our primary goal is keeping “the bitcoin bar” that we all know and love true to it’s history and style, while we continue our journey to blockchain eternity (and beyond).

Room 77 Bitcoin Community

So what we do with the space is up for discussion and consensus. Keeping the spirit of “the bar” intact, includes but is not limited to, the following:

  • Accepting bitcoin payments
  • Bitcoin ATM on premises
  • Host monthly community meetups
  • Gatherings & post conference events

Previously Room 77 had the best fucking burgers and nachos in town. Part of our proposal is to bring some food back… more on that later 😉

😎 Cyberpunk Co-Working

Inspired by our friends in Prague at Paralelni Polis who created a coffee shop, co-working, and event space that only accepts bitcoin- the concept here is to tastefully convert the Room 77 premises in the daytime into the coolest grungiest cyber/cypherpunk co-working space in the galaxy, while making it easy to transition back to bar every night.

Using the co-working space would cost a monthly fee to ensure access. This would be available to both local ‘punks and wayward crypto travelers in Berlin. It would include the normal co-working space amenities:

  • Available table space
  • Reliable internet
  • Fresh coffee, tea, sodas
  • Freshly made snacks
  • Soundproof booth for phonecalls (Dr Who / Bill & Teds styled?)
  • Printing

For spicey cyber / crypto experience

  • 3D printers
  • Wifi network routed through VPN / Tor
  • LN payment enabled beer & kombucha taps
  • Jukebox (overide)
  • Multiple @room77.club privacy email addresses
  • VR and HoloLens goggles

Of course, true to brand, members could join this co-working space by making payments in only honest money

🧪 Food Hack Lab

Room 77 has a commercial kitchen which has been unused since the end of 2018. To properly make use of the space, some members of our community who’ve been working in sustainability and food, have a concept for producing fresh, healthy, local, and damn delicious food for the Room 77 Reboot along with a “lab” like vibe 🧫

  • Hot kitchen for the bar evenings
  • Food production facility and snacks for co-working
  • Community space for courses and food science experiments

Urban Health Conscious Comfort Food

The aesthetic of the kitchen and style of food will be simple, healthy, modern, and sustainable. Below are some of the current recipes our resident food hacker has cooked up.

Food Lab Collage

  • Fried Brandenburg Zucchini + marinara
  • Chocolate peanut butter popcorn treats
  • Freshly made pasta
  • Lab made vegetarian burgers

We even have ideas to give all the food coming out of the kitchen a futuristic cyberpunk flare 🍱 🧬

🦡 Interlude Badger

Given that the German goverment cannot seem to get a handle on the corona virus nor implement sensible policies, we have no idea when we could re-open the bar, host community events, or start the co-working space properly, we must be creative.

To offset the costs of the lease, and have fun experimenting, our proposal includes ideas for opportunisitcally adapting (like a honey badger 😉) to adversaries and circumstances by making use the space.

Digital Freedom Store

Many are aware of the threat digital technologies place on our freedom, but lack the ability (or time) to learn how to remove FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, NetFlix, Google) from their digital lives. The Digital Freedom Store would be a paid server there to help people improve their digital lives with common cases like:

  • Getting into bitcoin and need a hardware wallet?
  • Want to run Linux on your laptop but don’t know how?
  • Need some SoloKeys to better secure yourself?
  • Want to make your smartphone de-Googled?
  • Need an extra Raspberry Pi or open hardware gadget?
  • Want to buy an open-source PinePhone?

Imagine a “pickup” window which can operate during corona times to meet all these needs 🤓 💻 and a more friendly “counter” experience that itegrates with the co-working space once lockdowns are done.

Bonobos (working title)

Riffing on the rapid delivery Spati-like service Gorillaz which has taken Berlin by storm, we could bootstrap a pop-up local / sustainable version of this by working with local bike courier collectives and offer home delivery (for bitcoin, of course) of snacks, drinks, beer, etc…

TBD…

Have an idea that would fit well with the space…? Propose it.

⚖️ Governance

Given the community role Room 77 has played in the global bitcoin scene, and true to the principles of decentralization and open source, it makes sense to establish a future where the space is run by community. While there are German legal structures for community efforts (e.V.), it might make sense to have the business managed by a normal comany (UG / GmbH).

First order would be establishing how we organize collectively. This will be primarily centered around people in Berlin, but could (and should) be open to people not neccessarily in Berlin who love The Room and want to participate in the experimental future of Room 77.

₿ Finances

At this stage we have received a sufficient amount of pledges and more parties signaling support. We can meet the most pressing financial needs which are roughly detailed here:

Item Cost Multiplier Total
Rent 3,200 EUR x 48 months 153,600 EUR
Net + Elec 750 EUR x 48 months 36,000 EUR
Rennovation 50,000 EUR x 1 50,000 EUR 
Projected 4 Year Costs: 239,000 EUR

As we move towards establishing an organization, the membership fees our supporters have agreed to support us at are:

  • 50 EUR / month basic member
  • 100 EUR / month co-working member
  • 250+ EUR / month special projects or use

Co-working in Berlin generally costs 200 EUR / month. Commiting to a 4 year memberships

50 EUR x 12 months x 4 years = 2,400 EUR
100 EUR x 12 months x 4 years = 4,800 EUR

Special projects making use of the commercial kitchen (or creating a digital product store) will contribute a higher fee to have controllng access to some part of the Room.

Once we can open the bar and properly establish the co-working space, membership fees could come down significantly. This would be communicated with 100% transparency to all members of the community.

Member Pledges

A tally of people who’ve pledged to support the Room 77 Reboot thus far:

Members Monthly Total
7 50 EUR / month 350 EUR
12 100 EUR / month 1,200 EUR
1 1,000 EUR / month 1,000 EUR 
Total Member Pledges: 2,550 EUR / month

Donations

Generous donations which the community has signaled thus far are:

2.56 BTC

Pledge

Interested in pledging to be a member or make a donation? Please write to the following email:

Timeline

The community showed a sufficient amount of support, for us to move forward on signing the lease.

  • March 30: Reach consensus on community interest + support ☑️
  • April 1: Tenative leadership established ☑️
  • April 6: Submit our unusual proposal
  • Sign new lease with the building management???

Once those steps are achieved, we can move onto the following:

  • Establish official digital channels for meetings, discussions, decisions
  • Establish official financial accounts (bitcoin + fiat)
  • Write constitution of organization, etc.
  • Start making use of the space while we remodeling is ongoing

We are honored by our supporters. We hope once a new lease is secured that the global bitcoin community also sees the value we do in preserving and furthering this piece of bitcoin history that was impactful for so many.

~Room 77 Reboot Team