Blockchain
Orange Athena, pink dresses, Polymarket gadgets, Trump song
Participate in the Bitcoin in Italy Last week’s conference, hosted by BTC Inc., was an exercise in managing sensory overload: trying to live in the moment, follow the thread of the conversation, and hopefully not lose your mind or your wits.
A few of us CoinDesk journalists were lucky enough to attend in person, and rather than write a bland conference summary article that no one would read, we thought we’d spare you the long-winded prose and just give you a glimpse of our trip.
While we were trying to take it all in, we had to simultaneously plan our strategy for exactly how we were going to cover former President Donald Trump’s keynote speech scheduled for Saturday, the final day of the conference. The security surrounding this particular talk was unmatched in the history of Bitcoin and crypto conferences; it wasn’t entirely clear how or if we’d be able to bring laptops or good photography equipment inside, or if we’d have wireless connectivity to send headlines and archive stories.
The conference didn’t start until Thursday, but the side events and parties were already in full swing on Wednesday. We went to the BIT GALA to the Nashville Parthenona 127-year-old replica of the ancient Greek temple. The carpet leading to the entrance was orange, the bitcoin color – and the interior of the classical architecture was bathed in orange light, illuminating the meticulously reconstructed 12.8-meter-tall statue of the goddess Athena.
To be fair to the guests at this party, the following picture was taken before it actually started, but here’s what the inside looked like. Later in the evening we had a 97 percent confirmed sighting of Heather Morgan, aka rapper “Razzlekhan,” who pleaded guilty along with her husband in July 2023 to Charges in connection with $3.5 billion Bitfinex hack(On Sunday, Jameson Lopp, a contributor to open-source Bitcoin projects who now serves as CTO of Casa, tweeted that he too I ran into her in Nashvilleand separately we heard from a source who described herself as a “Web3 consultant.”)
We do not shy away from the stereotypical image of people taking pictures in front of the conference sign, which is so of rigor in these events:
Below is a view of the main Nakamoto stage, where many of the biggest names spoke. Later in the week, this is the specific room that the U.S. Secret Service would block off with its own separate security checkpoint, ahead of scheduled appearances on Friday by independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and on Saturday by Trump. The official attendance count was 22,000, according to conference officials.
We headed to the Bitcoin Builders conference, sponsored by the Bitcoin smart-contracts layer Stacks project, held upstairs in a huge coffee shop called Acme Feed & Seed. They had an omelet station and were offering bowls of hummus and greens. We chatted briefly with David Tse, the Stanford University engineering professor who cofounded Babylon, a Bitcoin staking protocol, and then I moderated a panel on Bitcoin DeFi, featuring projects working on stablecoins, swaps, and staking.
We went back to the main conference venue and took a tour of the exhibition hall. There were all kinds of solutions on offer.
Bitcoin artists have exhibited their works in a bazaar style and as part of a gallery.
We just happened to walk past this seminar given by Bitcoin Lightning protocol engineer Lisa Neigut, who is also the co-founder of Bitcoin++ developer conference. We had no idea what was going on at the time and had to rush off to another meeting, but Neigut later explained in a Telegram message that it was an educational game she invented called “Bitcoin LARP.”
Here are two completely different ways to wear a pink dress:
This guy bet on Dogecoin low and Bitcoin high:
We had a face-to-face with RootstockLabs co-founder Adrián Eidelman. The team, working with Fairgate, had just announced that they had succeeded in the technological breakthrough of Interactive verification of a SNARK proof – a powerful type of encryption in many blockchain systems, on the Bitcoin mainnet.
We sat down with Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, and spoke briefly about the challenges of funding open-source Bitcoin developers.
The Tron blockchain hosted a side party in a converted movie studio called Vu Nashville, with a country music singer providing entertainment on a wraparound electronic screen that depicted what looked like a red-tinted scene from Blade Runner. Incidentally, the bartender told us that the closing party the night before for the Ordinals-focused Inscribing Nashville side event, held at the same venue, was so packed that they sold out their entire supply of about 4,000 glasses.
The panel below was probably the most technologically fascinating we saw all week at the main conference: on developer Robin Linus’ last-mile efforts to perfect his innovation. BiteVM design for practical application, together with OP_CTV creator Jeremy Rubin, Liam Eagen of Alpen Labs, and L2 Iterative research partner Weikeng Chen.
On the sidelines of the Open Source Stage, Blockstream Research Director Andrew Poelstra, who probably knows the inner workings of Bitcoin programming better than anyone else, chatted freely with attendees about technical matters:
We stumbled upon the creator of Ordinals and Runes Casey Rodarmor and his co-host on the Hell Money podcast, Inscription of Atlantis CEO Erin Redwing visits an exhibit minutes before a scheduled panel discussion.
Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Investment Management, entered through a side entrance at Music City Center, the conference’s main venue.
It’s not Bitcoin at all, but this camouflage baseball cap from Polymarket, a prediction market built on the Polygon blockchain, which has suddenly become the reference place for betting on scenarios related to the US elections – was the most current giveaway item we noticed at the conference.
The architectural beauty of Music City Center was spectacular when viewed from a mezzanine balcony, which one had to walk past to reach the invitation-only Galaxy Digital happy hour.
All week, my CoinDesk colleague Danny Nelson and I had been brainstorming the best way to cover Trump’s speech, analyzing every aspect. We had heard there would be a special access area reserved for press, but it was far back in the room. Danny figured our best chance of covering the event would be to simply line up with everyone else and try to get the best possible spot in the general seating area. We continually reevaluated our options throughout the day.
The doors didn’t open until 8:00, but I managed to snag a spot in line around 7:20. About 20 minutes later, the line was going around the block.
Once you got past the internal security checkpoint for the Nakamoto Stage, there was no water or food readily available, and you had the option to leave, but anyone leaving the room would have to get in line, and that line didn’t move at all, as the room was already packed to the rafters and they wouldn’t let anyone else in.
So, along with everyone else who had made it this far, we were determined to sit in our seats for the next six hours or so, waiting for Trump to walk in. Danny managed to smuggle his laptop in, along with a decent camera.
There was plenty of programming to watch, including a panel featuring pro-Bitcoin Republican political candidates. Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel of North Carolina provided what was billed as a “progressive vision for Bitcoin,” but was booed when he made an effort to point out that Trump had tweeted in 2019 that Bitcoin “looks like a scam.”
A brief moment of entertainment occurred when MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who is credited with the idea of getting companies to include bitcoin on their balance sheets, walked across the general seating area and was quickly surrounded by people taking selfies.
Here’s the huddle of cameras and photographers awaiting Trump’s arrival, an indication of mainstream news interest. Conference officials told CoinDesk that the room was filled to its capacity of 8,500.
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss of crypto exchange Gemini were spotted walking near the roped-off VIP section at the front. There were rumors that Elon Musk might be arriving to make a special appearance, and people in the crowd posted social media posts that they appeared to be following his private jet en route to Nashville. (Some confusion ensued when Musk never showed up, and it was never explained who this special guest was.)
Conference officials were beaming in an interview with retired U.S. Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul, known for his mantra, “End the Fed” – from a temporary news studio set up in another part of Music City Center.
When Trump finally took the stage, he initially stood there speechless as the entire song “God bless the USA,” by Lee Greenwood, also known as “Proud to Be an American,” played. There was a standing ovation throughout the song.
We wrote about Trump’s speech Here.
The camera angle from where we were sitting wasn’t great; Trump’s teleprompter blocked the view. But it was still a decent choice to sit with the regular people, if not for the camera angle, then at least to get a real feel for the vibe of the crowd. Which you might describe as Fantastic.
Below is a view through a smartphone camera lens, taken from the seats you would have gotten if you hadn’t gotten in line before 7:20 a.m.
UPDATE (July 30, 16:01 UTC): Adds final and official attendance data from representatives of BTC Media, the organization hosting the conference.