Bitcoin 2024 Recap: Freedom and Financial Autonomy

Thank you, Dabitch for letting me attend as part of Adland.tv

In an ever-increasingly hard fight to grab consumer attention, the advertising industry has adapted by jumping on short-lived bandwagons to get short-lived press. Who could forget Taco Bell NFTs? Probably everyone, including the people who bought the 25 tokens that featured GIFs of tacos. Imagine buying a taco GIF instead of an actual taco. Weird.

Anyway, I might have been the only one thinking about Taco Bel NFTs as I walked into Bitcoin 2024 this weekend in Nashville, Tennessee. But that’s because NFTs represent the best and worst of the tech world. Culture and commerce on the bleeding edge. But also full of zealots and con artists. It's also horrible for the environment, too.

Still, the experience was fascinating and even inspiring, with a lot of caveats thrown in for good measure. As a creative, I'm always being told that I should get out and experience life, and I would suggest that anyone who can afford to go to the next Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas should do it. The people watching alone is worth the price of admission. Kind of. Almost. I mean, tickets aren't cheap.

At any rate, here's my recap. There was a lot to take in, so I'm going wide rather than deep.

Like Bitcoin, the conference is still growing.

The convention was full of high energy. Multi stages, tons of speakers, big name keynote speakers. Knowing there is still a learning curve, experts were on hand to explain to basically anyone who wanted to listen what Bitcoin is, how it’s mined and why it matters or why it should matter.

Unlike Coachella, Burning Man and SXSW, this is still gaining momentum and hasn’t jumped the shark into one giant cash grab. The irony isn’t lost on me, since we're talking about cryptocurrency. But for every large shady tech company there that couldn’t really explain what they did without resorting to word salad, there were actual mom and pop vendors. One called Farrow sold skincare products made from lard. Another sold t-shirts that read Ketamine. There were silly Bitcoin trading cards, crappy jewelry. There were tons of t-shirts, too. The section of the conference was called the Bitcoin Bazaar which was an apt name.

The most ubiquitous t-shirt was one that was given away for free. And it said Free Ross.This was a plea to the U.S. government to commute Ross Ulbricht's sentence. Ulbricht is a first-time offender who is serving a double life sentence for starting the first “darknet” market Silk Road.

There was also an actual art gallery featuring some very good pieces as well as schlock.For every artist using AR to bring their canvases to life, there were Pepe the Frog goofs. The good outweighed the mediocre which was nice to see.

If I were writing a brief for this event and wanted to describe “Who we are talking to,” I would be hard-pressed to narrow it down beyond the “freedom lovers,” category. I spoke with retirees in their late 60’s from America who had moved to El Salvador, cattle ranchers who were seeking bitcoin investments to support their farms, a middle-aged guy from Mexico who had just arrived. In the media room I hung out with locals in Nashville and a camera man from China. There were tons of Gen Z and Millennials. There were the inevitable crypto influencers, too.

The promise of the future (dark or otherwise).

I caught a lot of presentations. Some of them were duds. Some of them had such a tenuous connection to crypto I had to squint to see it clearly. But those were outliers. If you are even halfway into Bitcoin you know Michael Saylor who sometimes acts as if Bitcoin is a panacea for every last thing wrong with the world. But his presentation was succinct and his visual aids made a simple analogy using historical moments to explain Bitcoin’s promise. Essentially The Alaska Purchase paid off in the future when oil was discovered. The Louisiana Purchase opened up the rest of America. Fair enough. When he started suggesting we’d have trillions upon trillions of dollars if we all join hands and invested is when the presentation veered into overselling.

For what should be obvious reasons, Edward Snowden’s virtual (and pre-recorded) keynote was bleaker and in more hushed tones, warning the audience that “The reality is that Bitcoin transactions are permanent, public, can be tracked and can be linked,” and that there is no such thing as privacy. And he ended by saying "We have to cooperate, we have to make sure they don’t reduce this country to the land of the fee and the home of the slave. The only way we will do that is if we work together so by all means cast your vote but don’t join a cult.”

Hearing from (almost) all sides.

Politically, there were left and right-leaning Libertarians, anarchists, conservatives and those who would describe themselves as not fitting in any category or politically homeless in attendance. Everyone I spoke to cited freedom as their number one reason for believing in the possibility of crypto regardless of political persuasion. This was also true of keynote speakers.

Bill Hagerty, a conservative senator from Tennessee represented the populist POV, speaking of the need for the Bitcoin center to “be in America.” Tim Scott who ran for President this year and dropped out also did a Q & A ranging from insipid to vapid. Everyone’s favorite libertarian, Ron Paul was interviewed by Bitcoin Magazine (who heads up the conference) although he was not a keynote speaker.

Perhaps the two most interesting speeches were from presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump. I should note that while they are both obviously on opposite sides of the political spectrum, both voiced similar stances on the need for economic autonomy. And both declared that if elected, they would “Free Ross on Day One.”

This had a lot of audience members wondering if this very specific pledge was one of the reasons why Kamala Harris wasn’t in attendance. She’s not only the presumptive democrat nominee, but she’s also the current Vice President and could conceivably convince President Biden to do so. Or at least that was the prevailing sentiment at the conference.

RFK Jr.

Presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr told a powerful story about his crypto journey, first learning about it from his kids, but then experiencing firsthand what he described was the Trudeau administration’s tyranny in freezing bank accounts and PayPal accounts of working-class truckers who were protesting Canada’s Covid vaccine mandate. Note that this point had nothing to do with vaccines but being able to peacefully protest. “

Transactional freedom is as important as freedom of expression and the first amendment…if a government is able to starve you and evict you from your home if you speak out against it, then we are on the road to totalitarianism and slavery.”

Kennedy also praised the Bitcoin community.

"The Bitcoin community reminds me of how American politics ought to be: fiercely diverse but ultimately united in our aspirations and our belief in our country and n our convictions that America is worth a fight. And in the end we all come back together united in our belief that Bitcoin is a technology for freedom for optimism, for independence, for democracy and transparency. It is the currency of all. It is the perfect currency.”

Trump

Of course Donald Trump was his usual smart-ass stand up self, although due to time constraints wasn’t able to ramble as he is wont to do. After a late start (which was attributed to the Secret Service delaying him) Trump’s message was, shall we say, on brand.

His analogy of Bitcoin's potential reminded me of Michael Saylor's point from the day before, describing crypto as being akin to the early steel industry of 100 years ago. Still in its infancy with a lot of promise ahead.

The biggest moment in his keynote address that came as a surprise to Trump was when he pointed out the chairman of the SEC was one of the biggest reasons Bitcoin’s progress was being stifled. When he said he would fire Gary Gensler on day one and appoint a new SEC chairman, the crowd lost their shit. Sensing a good moment, Trump repeated the line for good measure.

Lost in all the asides, jokes and name calling in Trump’s speech was a closing moment that was full of gravitas if you are a Bitcoiner believer.

“You are the modern day Edisons and Wright Brothers and Carnegies and Henry Fords, and what you do in our lifetime stands a chance to outlive us all and inspire humanity for generations to come. This will go down as a very important day in the history of our industry. Together you are building America with your own smarts, your own grit and your own skin in the game.”

My takeaway is that regardless of how you vote, or if you vote, this will become a bigger topic of dicussion, and not just during election season.

The good stuff wasn't just reserved for the 7,000 seat room. There were some interesting talks, Q&A's and what felt like lightning round presentations to investors on the outer, smaller stages, too. if you have no interest in Bitcoin, you should familiarize yourself with it, as it's only a matter of time before we completely clean up the Wild West version that landed Sam Bankman-Fried in jail.

Then we'll be advertising it properly.

And the winner will be the one who can succinctly explain what it is and why it matters without eyeballs glazing over.