The Bitcoin Hackathon conference will be held in Aalto Venture Garage, Betonimiehenkuja 3, Espoo, Finland on September 2-4. The free 2-day event is the latest evidence of the tech and startup boom the Nordic region has been going through in recent times, especially now in light of Nokia’s massive layoffs and a growing pool of engineers looking for new opportunities.

As the name implies, the event’s official theme will be the Bitcoin digital currency. Participants are only required to enroll via Facebook or a form available on the official site, and carve out an idea somehow related to online payments that they’ll be able to develop.

From the event page:

Loose rules:

1. Form a team, and decide project you are going to work on;

2. Present your project to the jury at the start of the event;

3. Explain and demo what you have accomplished at the end of the event.

 

– Note that you can work on whatever you want, be it open source project, your new startup or anything else.

The Nordic and in particular Finish startup space is heating up, and Bitcoin Hackathon is only the latest gathering that–at least to some extent–puts an emphasis on Finnish innovation. The Aalto Entrepreneurship Society was held on July 6^th, and featured speeches, a keynote by Rovio’s Peter Vesterback, a competition between 11 startups selected out of 74 applicants, and more.

Another notable presence in the Nordic startup scene is the Startup Sauna, that held its largest accelerator program in four years for Nordic and Baltic teams. It kicked off on May 2nd and went on for six weeks until June 17th. 15 Finnish entrepreneurs or “coaches” were a part of the program.

Back on the subject of Bitcoin, the virtual currently is expanding fast with the recent launch of a dedicated Android app. The open-source application written by Brian Armstrong features an end-to-end bitcoin wallet despite the fact a final version has not yet been released. Bitcoin is indeed expanding rapidly, and it’s also developing itself towards becoming a more rounded out economy.

BitTrust launched an API last month that is comparable with platforms such as eBay, where retailers can be reviewed by buyers.