Bloomberg reporter's first-person perspective: Experiencing 48 hours at the Bitcoin 2024 conference

Original Title: “Forty-Eight Hours at the MAGA-fied Crypto Lovefest”

Author: Zeke Faux, Bloomberg

Translation: Luffy, Foresight News

On July 17, about a week before Donald Trump was set to speak in front of 8,000 Bitcoin fans in Nashville, Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey excitedly explained how he and his friends managed to get the presidential candidate to attend the conference. Bailey, 33, with a baby face and a thick beard, appeared on a podcast called Galaxy Brains, where he told the host that it was so crazy he was keeping a journal to document everything that was happening. Bailey said, “I’m not going to publish this because no one would believe it’s true.”

Why was Bailey so excited? The reason is not hard to understand. Trump would be attending a conference hosted by Bailey's company, a gathering for Bitcoin's faithful believers who firmly believe Bitcoin is the only true cryptocurrency and the future world currency. Just a few years ago, this conference was marginalized like a clown party, when Trump publicly called Bitcoin a “scam”; now, he would take the stage to endorse Bitcoin.

Bailey said he had spent almost all his time for four months trying to get Trump to attend. Although the former president has been a critic of cryptocurrency, he had collaborated with the co-author of the 2007 book Think Big and Kick Ass to create a series of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) called “Trump Digital Trading Cards.” These NFTs essentially feature cartoon images of Trump as a muscular superhero, hunter, soldier, etc., selling for $99 each, and Trump held an event for NFT buyers at his Mar-a-Lago club in May, where he was more open about his attitude toward cryptocurrency. Bailey immediately took action to arrange meetings between industry insiders and the campaign team.

“The campaign team is like artists trying to sell garbage art,” Bailey said, “If you want to make progress (for Bitcoin to gain recognition and support), you have to show them the money.”

Donald Trump speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville

Bailey told the podcast host that he was just using a metaphor, referring to the process of building enthusiasm. But he did it; he orchestrated a fundraising event for Trump, where the top ticket required a donation of $844,600 to Trump and the campaign committee, the maximum amount allowed by campaign finance law. Only 10 people donated that much. “A lot of money,” Bailey said, “but nowhere near enough to sway a party’s viewpoint. I was shocked to find that a very small number of people can have such a huge impact over time.” (In a later interview, Bailey downplayed his role in persuading Trump, stating that many people around Trump were already interested in Bitcoin, and the candidate's support was not due to donations from the industry. “Campaign funding follows relevant policies,” Bailey said.)

On the podcast, Bailey described Trump’s appearance as a step in a larger plan. He speculated that if Trump were elected, he might announce a plan to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve, similar to how the U.S. holds gold at Fort Knox. This plan would certainly drive up the price of cryptocurrency, and other countries might start buying it, hoping to get ahead of the U.S. If Trump told China that Bitcoin was crucial to the U.S., China might lift its cryptocurrency ban and buy Bitcoin. Bailey said, “If we want China to buy Bitcoin, all we have to do is get someone to say we’re stopping them from buying Bitcoin.” He added that the price of one Bitcoin could reach $1 million.

“With the spread of faith, our financial power expands as well,” Bailey said, “You can’t beat it.”

For those familiar with Bitcoin's disruptive origins, it seems contradictory that Bitcoin, an anonymous and untraceable digital cash, is being lobbied for acceptance by former and future U.S. presidents. But for the past 15 years since Satoshi Nakamoto (an anonymous individual or group) invented Bitcoin, it has failed to gain widespread acceptance as a currency.

Bitcoin enthusiasts now refer to it as “value storage.” They call it “digital gold” and talk about how only 21 million Bitcoins will ever be issued, unlike currencies that central banks can print at will. For skeptics, their primary concern seems to be the rising price of Bitcoin, which sometimes sounds more like a description of a pyramid scheme. From this perspective, Trump represents the ultimate goal of Bitcoin; he could bring the U.S. government to the base of the pyramid, triggering a global rush to buy Bitcoin, making those at the top of the pyramid extraordinarily wealthy.

Since Bailey held the conference in 2021, I have often heard stories about past Bitcoin conferences. When I saw crypto enthusiasts crying as the president of El Salvador announced that Bitcoin would be the country’s legal tender, I mocked their logic of “first El Salvador, then the world.” Later, I went to El Salvador and found that the plan had failed. I wrote a book about it (Number Go Up), discovering that the plan was utterly foolish and filled with fraud. The likelihood of Bitcoin holders selling their assets to the Federal Reserve seems as likely as my taking my children's artwork off the fridge to sell to the National Gallery.

Back to the present, with cryptocurrency prices rebounding, Bitcoin's most fervent supporters have gained the backing of someone who is likely to become the next president. I had to see for myself whether he would fully support cryptocurrency.

“Donald Trump is the tool we use to make Bitcoin's game theory work,” Bailey said, “It will generate unimaginable dividends over the next four years.”

On Friday morning, as I walked into the Bitcoin conference held at the Nashville Music City Center, I found the event was not much different from others I had attended, except for the red capital letters saying “Make America Great Again” or “Make Bitcoin Great Again.” More typical was the ubiquitous orange “B” symbol. Enthusiastic fans were selling Bitcoin children's books, Bitcoin blankets, and cringe-worthy Bitcoin art featuring more orange “B” symbols and images of government currency being burned, smashed, or shredded. (Trump never misses an opportunity to promote products; later, he advertised orange Bitcoin sneakers on Truth Social.) A model in a bikini sprayed herself with water heated by a Bitcoin mining machine. I also saw Hailey Welch, who became famous for “hawk tuah,” lingering in front a booth selling orange lingerie.

Attendees in MAGA attire at the conference

The event felt less like a tech hackathon and more like a marketing conference aimed at mobilizing salespeople to pitch products to friends and family once they returned home. The concept of the event was the “orange pill,” a metaphor for when a person's mind is liberated and they begin to accept Bitcoin, much like Keanu Reeves' character Neo accepting reality in The Matrix. “Our whole office took the orange pill,” said a woman from Jersey City, wearing an orange jumpsuit embroidered with “Bitcoin Orthodontist.”

On stage, discussions about cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin were not encouraged, and among the attendees, I did not hear any discussions about the many cryptocurrency scams, such as Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX. For this group, the only Ponzi scheme is the Federal Reserve, which they claim is printing unsustainable currency that will lead to the collapse of the dollar. Many people I spoke with were hosting Bitcoin parties in their hometowns or had Bitcoin podcasts or Bitcoin-related small businesses. One woman handed me a promotional card for a sci-fi novel related to Bitcoin, telling me she was “one of the authors' wives,” and I ended up having a lengthy hour-long discussion with the owner of an appliance store about whether Bitcoin adoption would lead companies to produce more durable refrigerators and dishwashers.

Many experts attribute Trump's flip-flopping on Bitcoin to his pursuit of the so-called massive “cryptocurrency voter” demographic. They often cite a survey released last year by Coinbase Global Inc., which found that 20% of American adults own cryptocurrency. Tennessee Republican Senator Bill Hagerty told me at the conference, “There are tens of millions of voters in America who have invested in cryptocurrency.”

Even if this is true (a survey by the Federal Reserve in May found that only 7% of adults own cryptocurrency), it seems to me that loosening financial regulations is unlikely to be a top political concern for most people. So what about those who have been scammed? Comedian Nikki Glaser drew mainstream attention during a roast for Tom Brady on Netflix, where she joked about the former NFL quarterback losing money on cryptocurrency and mentioned his notoriously dim-witted teammate Rob Gronkowski. She said, “Even Gronk said, ‘I know that’s not real money.’”

At the conference, cryptocurrency-swing voters seemed elusive. Most attendees told me they supported Trump or independent candidate Robert Kennedy, who is more outspoken in his support for Bitcoin. “I’m still undecided,” said a truck driver from Cincinnati, who asked me to call him Colonel Kernel Stacker. (Kennedy was overshadowed by Trump at the conference, and he said he wasn’t upset about it.)

Discounts for using Bitcoin to purchase clothing and scarves

Cryptocurrency-swing voters are positioned at the top of the cryptocurrency industry, which tended to lean Democratic when FTX's Bankman-Fried was the most prominent political player in the industry. The political action committee Fairshake, supported by cryptocurrency companies, has raised over $200 million, more than any other super PAC in this election, and has stated it will support crypto-friendly politicians from both parties. However, much of Fairshake's funding comes from companies that have been sued by the SEC or venture capitalists who have invested in those sued companies. This makes them natural adversaries of the Biden administration (SEC Chair Gary Gensler has taken a hardline stance on cryptocurrency) and aligns them with Trump, who has complained for years about fraudulent lawsuits against his businesses being illegitimate. In a podcast last month, Ben Horowitz, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which donated $44 million to Fairshake, argued that the Biden administration's attacks on cryptocurrency “undermine the rule of law.” Horowitz stated he would vote for Trump and reportedly plans to donate a large sum to Trump's campaign. (Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg Businessweek, is one of Andreessen Horowitz's investors.)

On Friday afternoon, one of the most influential Bitcoin advocates, Michael Saylor, took the stage. He is the 59-year-old chairman of software company MicroStrategy Inc. Since 2020, he has invested billions of MicroStrategy's funds into Bitcoin, yielding substantial returns. (Saylor and MicroStrategy also agreed to pay $40 million in June to settle a tax fraud lawsuit without admitting wrongdoing.) Several attendees told me they learned about Bitcoin through Saylor's speeches, which have garnered millions of views online.

Some in the crowd waited in long lines just to hear Saylor speak, and he did not disappoint. Dressed in a dark suit and a red tie nearly as long as Trump's, he used slides to explain why countries should buy Bitcoin. This was almost a given, as he predicted that by 2045, the price of one Bitcoin would rise 190 times to $13 million.

“You will become very wealthy,” he said.

Booths at the Nashville Bitcoin 2024 conference

On Friday night, several hours after Saylor's speech, I went to a hotel near the conference center where Donald Trump Jr. and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson were scheduled to attend a $MAGA-sponsored side event aimed at calling for “Make America Great Again,” one of many Memecoins hoping to join the movement.

The two, along with Trump Jr.'s fiancée, another former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, stepped out of a large black SUV. Carlson had invited Saylor to his Fox show in 2021 to discuss Bitcoin. When I asked him if he had given Donald Trump the orange pill, he nearly laughed out loud. “I hope so,” he said. When I asked Trump Jr. if he supported the MAGA Memecoin, he told me he was just there to visit friends.

Soon after, Bailey arrived. He told me that Trump’s change was “not at all his doing,” and then headed straight to the event. I had previously applied for media credentials, but an organizer denied me, citing a line from my book: “From the beginning, I thought cryptocurrency was very stupid. It turns out it’s even stupider than I imagined.” Fortunately, there was a live stream. Just as Trump Jr. and Carlson were speaking, a member of a Telegram chat dedicated to discussing tokens was hurling insults at others and sharing memes from the 2004 satire film Team America: World Police. “I love this community,” Trump Jr. said, “You’re all pioneers.”

Taproot Wizards balloons make an appearance at the Nashville Bitcoin 2024 conference

I went to another rooftop party hosted by the team behind Taproot Wizards, a series of seemingly haphazard wizard NFTs. There, amidst a circle of men in wizard hats discussing Bitcoin, I spotted someone who surprised me: Heather Morgan, better known as Razzlekhan, the terrible rapper who dubbed herself the “Wall Street Crocodile” and helped her husband launder $4.5 billion from a Bitcoin hack, the largest theft in history.

Morgan later pleaded guilty, and her bail conditions apparently allowed her to attend Bitcoin parties. She wore a black dress with a belted collar and fishnet stockings, chatting with famous rapper Lil Pump, who launched his own token in June. One of the men in a wizard hat tried to incite them to have a rap battle.

Ironically, if Trump were to follow Bailey's advice and establish a Bitcoin reserve, Morgan would also bear the same responsibility: most of the Bitcoin held by the U.S. government was seized from her and her husband. When I introduced myself, Morgan pulled down her black hat and quickly walked away.

Another self-proclaimed wizard pulled me into a conversation. “David Bailey has been working hard for all of us,” he said.

Pizza Ninja showcases at the Bitcoin 2024 conference

The next day, I arrived three hours before Trump’s speech. The organizers said the auditorium could hold 8,000 people, but there were not many seats left, yet I managed to grab a spot toward the back.

“The big guy just landed,” said host TJ Miller, a curly-haired comedian who had stepped down from Silicon Valley due to erratic behavior allegations, which he denied.

Fundraising events were also taking place elsewhere in the building. A woman at my table worked for a company that had developed a MAGA-themed token; she said her colleagues had paid $100,000 to take a photo with Trump.

A guard escorted a man wearing a gold full-face mask past me. Someone said he was a billionaire who had invested in a cryptocurrency called Shiba Inu, a Dogecoin knockoff.

As we waited, retired U.S. Representative Ron Paul appeared via video at the conference. “The bubble will always burst,” he said. The crowd murmured, and I could hardly hear his words, but I was fairly certain he was talking about the dollar.

It was time for Trump to speak, but he did not show up. Rumors circulated that he was waiting for Elon Musk to arrive. To keep the audience entertained, the organizers played an advertisement for a new documentary called God Bless Bitcoin. The documentary is available for free on YouTube, and its title seems to be taken literally.

Trump finally emerged from backstage about an hour late, and Elon Musk was still nowhere to be seen. He began singing a sad country ballad that has become his anthem, “God Bless the U.S.A.” After mentioning the recent Hezbollah attacks on Israel, he began talking about how Bailey brought him to the conference. Trump clearly respected Bailey's salesmanship.

“I took a picture, it got published, and Trump and David Bailey, your industry just took off,” Trump said, raising one hand above his shoulder. “So David, congratulations, whatever you’re doing, you’re doing great.”

He then thanked many powerful celebrities present. MicroStrategy's Saylor, fund manager and Bitcoin promoter Cathie Wood, and Howard Lutnick of Cantor Fitzgerald, who earlier that day gave an angry speech defending Tether Holdings Ltd., the issuer of the controversial Tether stablecoin and a client of his bank, were praised. Trump lauded YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul, who I later found out paid about $100,000 to the SEC last year to settle allegations that he promoted a crypto token without disclosing he was compensated for it. (He neither admitted nor denied the allegations.)

Trump also praised Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twin brothers whose cryptocurrency exchange agreed in June to pay $50 million to settle a fraud lawsuit filed by the New York Attorney General. (The cryptocurrency exchange neither admitted nor denied the allegations.) “They are male models with beautiful brains,” he said. Trump praised everyone present, calling them “high IQ people” and saying they “have the spirit of America’s forefathers.”

I thought that was all Bitcoin supporters could hope for. While Trump did mention “crooked Hillary” and “the winds of change,” he repeated some of the same points I had heard from Bitcoin supporters and cryptocurrency lobbyists. Besides the claims from the Coinbase survey, he also stated that he heard from advisor Vivek Ramaswamy (who was also a presidential candidate and attended the survey) that 175 million people were involved in cryptocurrency, a massive voting bloc.

Trump said, “If Bitcoin is going to the moon, I want America to be the country leading that process.”

He then began discussing how he didn’t want China to beat the U.S. in the cryptocurrency space, seemingly unaware that China had attempted to ban cryptocurrency. I was surprised. This was exactly what Bailey had said on the Galaxy Brains podcast a week earlier. “We can’t let China dominate,” Trump said.

When Trump announced he would fire Gensler, the applause was thunderous, causing him to pause and repeat the statement.

He said he would draft regulations to allow the expansion of stablecoins, stating that stablecoins “extend the dollar’s dominance into new realms around the world,” echoing Lutnick's views from Cantor Fitzgerald.

Trump stated that it was unfair for banks to refuse to work with cryptocurrency companies, calling it “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.” This obscure phrase was coined by a cryptocurrency venture capitalist who later tweeted, “If you post enough stuff on the internet, it might eventually be quoted by past and future presidents.”

Finally, Trump did call for government investment in Bitcoin. “For a long time, our government has violated the basic rule that every Bitcoin holder knows by heart: never sell your Bitcoin.” He added that the U.S. currently holds 210,000 Bitcoins seized by law enforcement, and he would order the government to keep those Bitcoins instead of auctioning them off for cash. “This will effectively become the core of a national strategic Bitcoin reserve.”

He then clearly ad-libbed, “Have fun, whether it’s Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, or anything else.”

As I walked out of the auditorium, the crowd seemed somewhat disappointed, even though Trump had nearly recited every verse of the Bitcoin anthem. Robert Kennedy had proposed a much larger scale for the U.S. Bitcoin reserve in his speech, which seemed to set expectations too high. One cryptocurrency developer told me he had been hoping Trump would announce a plan to buy $800 billion worth of Bitcoin. A cryptocurrency podcast was interviewing another cryptocurrency podcast in the auditorium, and the host stated he still preferred Robert Kennedy.

Trump's fundraising event had hit its target. Bailey wrote on X that the event raised $25 million. A few days later, Trump discussed on Fox Business how he might use Bitcoin to pay off the national debt. “Who knows, maybe we’ll pay off our $35 trillion debt with a little cryptocurrency check, right?” he said with a laugh. “We’ll give them a little Bitcoin, and then our $35 trillion debt will be paid off.”