Bitcoin2024: Behind the orange veil

For all the madness and triumph of Bitcoin2024, something inside me died. And something else was born anew.

The secret service wore heavy vests festooned with implements of death. “No bags allowed inside,” one told me, so I tossed mine onto a waist-high mountain of cloth the other pilgrims left behind.

Nearby, a woman left her purse. “We’ll get it when we leave,” her husband said, tugging her inside.

I followed them into the darkened room where the Nakamoto Stage glowed like a dais for the gods.

In 3 hours, the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, would take the stage at Bitcoin2024.

We could hardly focus on what the warm-up speakers said.

“It’s funny,” a Canuck leaned over to say, “once you’re in bitcoin for a while, this stuff sounds so basic, it’s retarded.”

The talking heads onstage were ministers of the Office of Bitcoin Propaganda. We knew their phrases and techniques because most of us had been listening to them for years (and using similar language with friends and family).

From all corners of the globe, we came. From all walks of life.

Some of us had bought drugs off the Silk Road. Some ran massive mining farms. Some flipped bungalows on the New York coast. Some drove semis. Some shipped code.

We were drawn, not by the promise of higher prices, but by something deeper, by some twanging, thrumming intuition deep inside that this moment was different, that it was pivotal, that it just might mark a turning point for bitcoin and for humankind.

Hours later, "God Bless the U.S.A." came blaring out of the speakers. We climbed madly onto our chairs.

“I'm proud to be an American / Where at least I know I'm free.”

And there he was: Trump, basking in the glinting light of 8,000 pairs of hopeful eyes while the music played.

“And I won't forget the men who died / Who gave that right to me.”

Trump stepped the mic and rambled before finally pivoting to what we’d come to hear. 

“I pledge to the Bitcoin community that the day I take the oath of office, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's anti-crypto crusade will be over. It will end. It'll be done. The moment I'm sworn in, the persecution stops and the weaponization ends against your industry as long as I'm in the Oval Office.”

While we cheered, someone tapped me on the elbow. “Do you want some THC?”

I looked down at the vape in his hands and thought: the Secret Service is going to tackle my ass. But then, I realized he’d just hit it, and no one had tackled him.

Fuck it, I thought.

This isn’t a conference, this is bitcoin’s Woodstock. This is history.

I took a puff and passed it down the line.

Trump laid into Elizabeth Warren. Pocahontas, he calls her, and we guffaw… in large part because Trump’s so ludicrous.

“She's very nasty to you. She hates your people. She hates everything about you. We'll keep their hands off Bitcoin. Keep their hands off crypto. They can let it grow. We're going to let it grow. On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler…”

Suddenly, we’re all up again. Cheering, screaming, howling like half-starved wolves who’d spotted a hare on the frozen tundra.

“Trump! Trump! Trump!” some pockets in the audience chanted.

I cheered, too, clapping, laughing.

But Edward Snowden’s warning from the day before echoed in my mind: “Cast a vote, but don’t join a cult.”

“I didn't know he was that unpopular,” a stunned Trump said.

“Let me say it again: ON DAY ONE, I WILL FIRE GARY GENSLER!” 

We roared and pumped our fists.

“I will appoint a new SEC chairman who believes America should build the future, not block the future.”

As he continued on, my mind halved… split between his words and surreality of what was happening. Here was a former president talking not just to 8,000 faithful, but to the tens of thousands of politicians, corporate leaders and bankers around the world… telling them, point blank, bitcoin was the future, telling them, the U.S. was going all-in. And they were about to be left behind.

Then, he said something as important to me as anything else in his speech.

“Today, I repeat my pledge to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served.”

For this alone, I’d have made my pilgrimage to Nashville. Ross was an idealistic twenty-something when he’d built Silk Road. Rogue government agents, entrapment, inadmissible evidence and a farcical trial had stolen his 30s, earning him a sentence on par with the worst mass murderers in history.

Ross, the progenitor of the greatest marketing tool in bitcoin history, was our sacrificial lamb.

He bleeds while we walk free – many of us better off thanks to the bitcoin adoption he helped spur.

If you’re reading this, you know the rest of what Trump said.

The U.S. will not sell its bitcoin. It will establish a strategic reserve. There will never be a CBDC while I am President of the United States. 

And then, moments after he left the stage, Senator Cynthia Lummis strode forward with a document in hand.

“This is our Louisiana Purchase moment!” she said, hoisting the paper overhead. On it, were the words of a bill she’ll soon introduce proposing the establishment of a strategic bitcoin reserve. 

“Over five years, the United States will assemble one million Bitcoin, 5% of the world’s supply.”

That strange split came again: disbelief at what was happening. For more than a decade, I’d imagined a moment like this would come. But it’d happened even faster than I believed possible, and I realize now that the pace will only accelerate.

It doesn’t matter who wins the election.

The first domino has fallen.

Every politician, every corporate treasurer, every banker and every investor on the face of the planet must look at bitcoin and decide: is it time to buy?

As Michael Saylor warned us one day earlier, the first to act will win.

They will not win in some small way.

They will eat nations. They will birth dynasties. They will establish empires.

Or they will wither on the vine (more thoughts on this in the tweetstorm below).

This change in bitcoin’s evolution comes bittersweet, like a sugar-coated pill that’s laid too long on your tongue.

Despite all the madness and joy of Bitcoin2024, something inside me died… for bitcoin’s journey moves beyond us now, from fringe believers to the center of the geopolitical stage.

And some part of me will forever mourn that time before the storm, before the corporate and governmental clambering for bitcoin, when bitcoin was ours and ours alone.

I will remember my younger self, half broken by the system, working 60 hours a week so I could scrape together every last cent to add to my tiny stack of orange sats.

I will remember that naive dream, that steadfast belief that the world could and would change.

I will remember when we gathered in the shadows.

And I will remember when we stepped into the light.

🎈

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Want more reflections on Bitcoin2024? LFG: https://x.com/redphonecrypto/status/1818037801872654794