MIAMI – Crypto jargon and alcohol flowed free when thousands of Bitcoin enthusiasts came to South Florida this weekend.
At Bitcoin 2021, considered the biggest Bitcoin event in history, legions of loyal fans braved 90-degree days to talk about everything to do with crypto. Many of the conference attendees were bitcoin maximalists, a term used to describe people who believe that bitcoin, and not necessarily other cryptocurrencies, is the future of finance. Most plan on BTD (buy the dip) and HODL (hold on for my life).
The energy was electric. A maskless, sold-out crowd of 12,000 attendees spent two days cheering, hugging, sending crypto from wallet to wallet, and closing deals between panels and speeches. The novelty of participating in a largely indoor event with no Covid restrictions added to the atmosphere.
A standard pass to the event is $ 1,499. Some guests paid for a coveted orange bracelet known as a “whale pass,” which takes its name from a term used to describe people who own large sums of bitcoin. The pass granted access to an extra day of speakers, exclusive parties, and a private area in the convention hall with a free bar. On the first day of the conference, it was sold on Eventbrite for $ 21,000 plus a transaction fee of $ 529.
The crowd’s eyes were mixed. Imagine conference merch like neon belt bags, Bitcoin 2021 sunglasses, and t-shirts with crypto puns and hashtags. Some seemed ready for a summer rave, wearing bikinis in the media room.
However, there was also a strong contingent in Wall Street’s standard business, another sign of the mainstream’s growing interest in the world’s most popular cryptocurrency. “Whether they were attending or just going to the Miami events, there is more institutional involvement than I’ve ever seen at a Bitcoin conference,” Nic Carter, founding partner at Castle Island Ventures, told CNBC.
Miami lights up for crypto
For the thousands who couldn’t get an official ticket to the event, the parties and tangential get-togethers were the real draw. There were yacht parties with a DeFi (decentralized finance) theme, sumo wrestling matches, NFT art gallery openings, and cocktail hours devoted to talking about Bitclout, a social network based on the blockchain technology that most Is based on cryptocurrencies.
The after parties hit rooftops across town, with at least one with fire dancers. One of Miami’s biggest nightclubs, The Oasis has been crypto non-stop.
“There’s no way to quantify the extent to which an event like this will boost business,” said Mati Greenspan, portfolio manager and founder of Quantum Economics, who flew in from Israel for the event Wednesday night. “What could take an hour for a home meeting can be done in five or ten minutes at a conference. So every hour is worth five or ten meetings. “
Fire dancers entertain crypto enthusiasts at a rooftop party in Miami.
Dead verdigris
Much of the conversation revolved around moving to Miami. Start-ups, venture companies and crypto exchanges are moving en masse to the city – or at least opening additional offices.
Mayor Francis Suarez has portrayed himself as Bitcoin-friendly – Suarez announced in February that Miami plans to accept tax payments in Bitcoin and let employees get their salaries in the cryptocurrency, although the timing of the introduction is unclear. The city is also considering keeping Bitcoin on its balance sheet.
Now the whole city seems to be doing it. “From waiters to Uber drivers, a bouncer in the nightclub and even a lady selling chotchkes in the mall, most of the locals I met on-site seemed familiar with cryptocurrencies, and many of them are HODLing,” said Greenspan of the few days he spent in Miami.
Carter himself is considering moving. “Pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to is super bullish about Texas and Florida and pretty pessimistic about New York, San Francisco and Boston,” he said. “I left thinking that I would make this transition myself.”
“Bitcoin repairs everything”
A common refrain from some of the biggest names on the scene was that “Bitcoin will fix it all” which sums up the general mood at the conference pretty well.
“We say Bitcoin is hope; Bitcoin fixes everything, ”said Saylor. “That was definitely the case with our stock.”
Dorsey also doubled his exposure to the cryptocurrency. “If I wasn’t on Square or Twitter, I would be working on Bitcoin. If it needed more help than Square and Twitter, I would leave them for Bitcoin,” Dorsey said.
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The undertone of widespread support for Bitcoin was accompanied by a spirit of rebellion against the existing financial system.
“We don’t need the banks anymore,” continued Dorsey. “We don’t need the financial institutions that we have today.”
Cameron Winklevoss wore a T-shirt with a picture of the Federal Reserve building titled “Rage Against the Machine,” an indication that Bitcoin is not controlled by a central bank.
As one panel MC put it, “We are going to put the Fed out of business,” suggesting how people at Bitcoin 2021 viewed the monetary system and fiat money in general, with Bitcoin seen as the solution.
Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss (LR), creators of the Gemini Trust Co. crypto exchange, on stage at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a cryptocurrency conference held at the Mana Convention Center in Wynwood, Miami, Florida on June 4, 2021.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
But lifting the status quo does not mean anarchy. In many of my conversations with participants, the narrative was far from advocating the collapse or dissolution of society.
“The whole point of Bitcoin is that it’s a … peaceful protest against a monetary system that people don’t want to be a part of,” Carter said. “I don’t think the Fed has much to fear from Bitcoin. You don’t have to take to the streets to promote Bitcoin.”
The conference was attended by participants from countries with high inflation or other currency issues – places like Venezuela, Cuba, Turkey, Nigeria, Lebanon, and Iran – who perhaps best understand the use case for a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.
“There are hundreds of people in these places and you don’t have to explain Bitcoin to them; they understand it intuitively,” Carter said. “That was one of the best parts of the conference for me: meeting people who have felt the real impact of the currency collapse and seeing how they use Bitcoin.”
A common theme of the conference was the maturity of the Lightning Network, a Bitcoin-based payment platform that enables instant transactions.
Virtually every booth at the conference accepted Lightning transactions. Even Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey closed one during his keynote talk with Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation.
“This is a real success story,” said Carter. “It took Lightning four or five years to build on Bitcoin, but now it works.”
The shadow of Elon
Elon Musk wasn’t physically in Miami, but his presence was definitely felt. Right at the start of the conference, Bitcoin price fell after a tweet from the Tesla CEO suggesting he was getting rid of the currency.
Max Keizer, a high profile Bitcoin holder, started his fireside chat by cursing Musk’s name and shouting, “F — Elon!” multiple times.
On the main stage, Dorsey took a seemingly veiled shot at Musk’s criticism of the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining, saying that he is actually “stimulating more renewable energies”.
“You just look at the economics and ultimately the miners need to make a profit and buying cheap renewable energy will maximize their profit potential. It really is that simple,” continued Dorsey. “I thought I had an arrangement with some notable people out there and that seemed to change in weeks and now it’s in a strange place.”
Michael Saylor, a high-profile crypto advocate and CEO of MicroStrategy – a company that bought Bitcoin for its balance sheet last year before Square and Tesla – went a step further with Dorsey’s comments.
“It’s the ultimate use of intermittent energy. It is the highest quality use of renewable energy. It is the most valuable use of wasted or lost energy. And it’s just the highest quality use of energy, period, ”said Saylor.
NFL player and Bitcoin fan Russell Okung launched a poster campaign on Friday with the slogan “Stick to space, Elon,” an indication that Musk should stay on his track and leave opinion on crypto to industry representatives.
Most of the conference attendees said they would ignore his comments anyway. Many have said they don’t believe that Musk or anyone else – not even governments – can stop Bitcoin. A person in the bathroom row called him a clown and was referring to his weekend advert for a new, pornographic-named cryptocurrency.
