Glorifying Bitcoin
Thousands descend on Miami for cryptocurrency conference
TMIAMI» here was money in the air. Buzzwords floated around, like NFT, BTD, blockchain, token. There was a frenzied energy. And there was heat — a humid, sticky South Florida heat; the kind all the Californians and New Yorkers who moved to Miami during the pandemic’s winter doldrums were warned about. The kind generated
by thousands upon thousands of people gathering to worship at the altar of cryptocurrencies.
Such was the vibe at Bitcoin 2021, an occasional gathering of digital currency enthusiasts run by a magazine named after the cryptocurrency. Last year’s event had been postponed. But June 4 and 5, at least 12,000 people descended on Miami to make up for lost time, flocking to the largest Bitcoin conference in the world and the first major in-person business conference since the pandemic began.
The exuberance of being in person, indoors, in a crowd for the first time in more than a year was electric. Everyone hugged, no one masked. The money zipped between digital wallets. The conference swag included neon fanny packs, festival bracelets and a Lamborghini car. The jargon — stablecoin, peer-topeer, private key — flowed. So did the liquor.
For a few days, the city was a raging fireball of finance, technology and joyful anarchy, of unfathomable
wealth and desperate striving. Bitcoin 2021 heralded the receding of the pandemic, with comfortingly familiar and mundane elements of a business conference: the branded plastic sunglasses, brightly colored sponsor booths, lanyards and panels. Some attendees wore business casual. Others looked ready for a music festival. One donned a furry rave bikini.
It was another sign that the often absurd world of digital currencies was inching its way toward mainstream acceptance, or at least mainstream curiosity. Since late last year, Bitcoin has been on a wild ride, setting price records. Even a dramatic plunge from a high of $64,000 in April to a big dip this month did not dampen spirits. They’re BTD — buying the dip. Wall Street bankers, institutional investors and Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-wyo., all came to Miami.
Was everyone there to schmooze, to revolutionize the global financial system or just to get rich?
Several attendees told me the event offered catharsis, a signal that the pandemic was really ending. The line the morning of June 4 to enter the venue, a warehouse and outdoor site called Mana
Wynwood, stretched more than a mile. It was the largest crowd I had seen in a year.
Others were simply there to party. The bar opened right away and had as many takers as the coffee station.
“You will be a millionaire”
There was a reason we were in Miami and not New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles. The city has gone full crypto.
Bitcoin ATMS sprinkled the Wynwood neighborhood. A cryptocurrency exchange called FTX recently bought naming rights to the Miami Heat’s arena. Miami’s mayor, Francis Suarez, announced this year that the city would accept tax payments in cryptocurrency, let its employees collect salaries with it and explore holding some on its balance sheet. (The logistics of these announcements were still being studied.)
Shortly after 9 a.m. June 4, as the crowd streamed into the air-conditioned warehouse, a conference organizer introduced Suarez as “probably the most irresponsible politician in all of America, the mayor of the mecca of freedom.”
Suarez set a defiant tone. “I’m here to tell all the haters and all the doubters that this is not a moment, this is a movement,” he said. The crowd erupted in whistles and cheers.
Moishe Mana, a real estate mogul who owned the venue, walked around the crowded concourse of booths and crypto art with a small entourage. After working for years to bring companies, people and innovation to the city, he was basking in Miami’s ascent.
New York and San Francisco’s appeal was waning, Mana said. “Every city has its own golden age,” he added. “Nothing stays forever.”
Mana was not a big crypto guy, per se, but he recognized its power, comparing the devotion of its followers to a religion. “The more you fight religion, the more holy it becomes and the stronger the movement becomes,” he said.
Onstage, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, entrepreneurs and cryptocurrency billionaires, preached to the choir. Cameron Winklevoss wore a T-shirt with a picture of the Federal Reserve building captioned “Rage Against the Machine,” a reference to how cryptocurrency was not controlled by a central government or bank.
“If you own a Bitcoin today, you will be a millionaire in the future. For sure. Congratulations,” he said.
Later, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and payments company Square, offered his own endorsement. “If I were not at Square or Twitter, I would be working on Bitcoin,” he said.
On Saturday, the conference played a video of Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador, announcing a bill to make Bitcoin legal tender in the country. The audience leapt to a roaring standing ovation.
“The horses never die”
A day earlier and a few blocks away, in a warehouse coworking space called LAB Miami, about 50 people gathered to talk about the digital art and collectibles known as NFTS, or nonfungible tokens, which have exploded in popularity this year.
Addressing the room, Drew Austin, an entrepreneur and investor, described his success on NBA Top Shot, a site for buying and selling digital basketball clips. Another panelist, Alex Taub, cut in to clarify: “He basically spent $30,000 to $50,000 and it’s worth like $2 million-plus.”
Austin credited NBA Top Shot with making cryptocurrency accessible for mainstream users. “I’ve been preaching crypto to my friends since 2013 and the first time any of them have done anything with crypto is NBA Top Shot,” he said.
The conversation turned to the recent dip in the NFT market. The weekly value of NFT sales had fallen by 90% from its euphoric peak in early May, according to an analysis by Protos, a crypto-focused media company.
“Ninety percent of NFTS are going to be worthless,” Taub warned.
The conversation moved on to Zed Run, a site for buying, racing and breeding digital horses. Ali Spagnola, a popular Youtuber who started selling her paintings as NFTS, asked Roman Tirone, head of business partnerships at Zed Run, how long the digital horses lived.
“The horses never die,” he said.