Top line
Former president and one-time bitcoin opponent Donald Trump will speak at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee this weekend, along with other political figures, to promote his rebranding as a “crypto president” ahead of Election Day.
Trump will speak at the conference on Saturday. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
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Key facts
Billed as the world’s largest bitcoin conference, the three-day event hosted at the Music City Center convention complex features a wide array of speakers such as independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., political commentator and comedian Russell Brand and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
The conference features educational panels, networking opportunities and entertainment experiences such as a Karate Combat/Influencer Fight Club viewing and a screening of a bitcoin movie, “God Bless Bitcoin,” which features interviews with the likes of billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and skateboarding. legend Tony Hawk.
Trump will deliver a 30-minute keynote address on Saturday during the conference’s final day, in a speech likely to seek to court voters and capitalize on support he has already received from key figures in cryptocurrency such as the Winklevoss twins.
Tickets to the conference are expensive, starting at $699 and reaching as high as $21,000 for a single ticket – although prospective attendees can get tickets at a 21% discount if they buy them with bitcoin.
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Surprising fact
Edward Snowden, the whistleblower behind one of the biggest leaks of classified documents in the history of the National Security Agency, is expected to speak from Russia on Friday and called the cryptocurrency “the most important monetary advance since the creation of coins.”
Tangent
Bitcoin was down more than 2% on Thursday afternoon at just under $65,000, after mostly flatlining in the past three months, with gains of a fraction of a percent. It is up more than 53% since the beginning of the year.
Big Number
$1.8 million. That’s how many dollars worth of bitcoin Trump supporters have donated to the Republican nominee through the end of June, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Key background
The bitcoin conference has historically been used by public figures and companies as an opportunity to announce partnerships and initiatives. In 2021, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, announced at the event that the country will make bitcoin a legal tender. Attendance has been inconsistent in recent years, with 25,000 people showing up at the convention in 2022 (when the crypto market experienced one of its worst crashes ever) and 12,000 attending in 2023, according to Bloomberg. Bitcoin 2024 has not yet shared attendance numbers, although major speakers like Trump may generate more tickets than previous years.
What did Donald Trump say about Bitcoin?
Trump has increasingly warmed to cryptocurrency as Election Day nears, shedding the skepticism he held for it years ago. While president in 2019, he said he was not a fan of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, calling their values ”highly volatile and based on thin air” in a tweet. He also told Fox News in 2021 that bitcoin “just looks like a scam,” saying he doesn’t like it “because it’s another currency that competes against the dollar.” Since then, Trump has embraced cryptocurrency, which allows supporters to donate to his campaign with bitcoin and pick a running mate in JD Vance, R-Ohio, who supports and owns at least $100,000 worth of bitcoin. The cryptocurrency market could benefit from Trump’s win in November, with bitcoin remaining “sensitive” to the election as its price is “positively correlated with the probability” of a Trump victory, according to Bernstein analysts led by Gautam Chhugani. Trump’s Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris, is likely to adopt the regulation-centric crypto policy of her former running mate, President Joe Biden.
Further reading
Billionaire Winklevoss Twins Donate $2 Million in Bitcoin to Support Donald Trump (Forbes)
Are Trump and Vance Good for Bitcoin? Here’s why the market thinks so — even though Trump called it a ‘scam’. (Forbes)
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