Orange Athena, Pink Suits, Polymarket Swag, Trump’s Song

Attending the Bitcoin Nashville conference hosted by BTC Inc. last week was an exercise in managing sensory overload: Try to live in the moment, stay on topic, and hopefully not lose your mind or wits.

A few of us CoinDesk journalists were lucky enough to attend in person, and instead of writing a cliché conference summary that no one will read, we wanted to save you the long story and just give you a snippet of our journey.

While we were trying to figure it all out, we also had to plan our strategy for how to handle former President Donald Trump’s scheduled keynote speech on Saturday, the conference’s final day. The security around this particular speech was unrivaled in the history of Bitcoin and crypto conferences; it wasn’t entirely clear whether we’d be able to get laptops or good camera equipment inside, or have wireless connectivity to post headlines and file stories.

Wednesday

The conference didn’t start until Thursday, but side events and parties were already in full swing on Wednesday. We headed to the BIT GALA at Nashville’s Parthenon, a 127-year-old replica of an ancient Greek temple. The carpet leading to the entrance was orange—the color of bitcoin—and the interior of the classical architecture was bathed in orange light, reflecting a glow onto a meticulously reconstructed 42-foot-tall (12.8-meter) statue of the goddess Athena.

Walking towards the entrance of the Nashville Parthenon for the BIT GALA party (Bradley Keoun)

To be fair to the hosts of this party, the image below was taken before it actually started, but here’s what it looked like inside. Later in the evening, we witnessed a 97% confirmed image of Heather Morgan, aka “Razzlekhan,” who pleaded guilty to charges related to the $3.5 billion Bitfinex hack with her husband in July 2023. (On Sunday, Jameson Lopp, a contributor to open-source Bitcoin projects who now serves as CTO of Casa, tweeted that he crossed paths with her in Nashville, and we also heard from a source that she described herself as a “Web3 consultant.”)

The orange-lit interior of the Nashville Parthenon for the BIT GALA party (Bradley Keoun)

Thursday

We do not avoid the cliché image of people taking photos in front of the conference sign, which is common at such events:

Below is a view of the main Nakamoto Stage, where many of the biggest names spoke. This is the specific room that the U.S. Secret Service will lock down later in the week with its own separate security check ahead of the scheduled appearances of independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday and Trump on Saturday.

The story continues

Nakamoto Stage at Bitcoin Nashville conference (CoinDesk)

We went to the Bitcoin Builders conference, sponsored by the Bitcoin smart contracts middleware project Stacks and held upstairs at a huge bar called Acme Feed & Seed. They had an omelet station and served hummus and veggie bowls. I chatted briefly with David Tse, a Stanford University engineering professor who founded the Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon, and then I moderated a panel on Bitcoin DeFi, which featured stablecoins, exchanges, and projects working on staking.

David Tse (Bradley Keoun), an engineering professor at Stanford University who founded the Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon

We went back to the main conference venue and took a tour of the expo hall. All sorts of solutions were being offered.

Bitcoin booth in Nashville (Bradley Keoun)

Bitcoin artists exhibited their works in a bazaar style and gallery format.

Bitcoin art vendor (Bradley Keoun)

Bitcoin Art Exhibition in Nashville (Bradley Keoun)

We randomly walked past this seminar given by Lisa Neigut, a Bitcoin Lightning protocol engineer and co-founder of the Bitcoin++ developer conference. We had no idea what was going on at the time and had to rush off to another appointment, but Neigut later explained in a Telegram message that it was an educational game she invented called “Bitcoin LARP.”

Bitcoin Lightning protocol engineer and Bitcoin++ founder Lisa Neigut teaches at a Bitcoin Nashville side table near the Open Source Stage (Bradley Keoun)

Two completely different ways to wear a pink suit:

Bitcoin Nashville conference attendee in pink suit (Bradley Keoun)

Bitcoin Nashville conference attendee in pink suit (CoinDesk)

This guy chose Dogecoin at the bottom and Bitcoin at the top:

Conference attendee wearing Dogecoin tracksuit (Bradley Keoun)

We spoke one-on-one with RootstockLabs co-founder Adrián Eidelman. The team working with Fairgate announced that they had achieved a technological breakthrough in interactively verifying the SNARK proof—a strong form of cryptography in many blockchain systems—on the main Bitcoin network.

Adrián Eidelman (Bradley Keoun), co-founder of RootstockLabs

We caught up with Marathon Digital Holdings CEO Fred Thiel and had a quick chat about the challenges of funding open-source Bitcoin developers.

Marathon Digital Holdings CEO Fred Thiel (Bradley Keoun)

The Tron blockchain hosted a side party at a converted film studio venue called Vu Nashville, with a country music singer providing entertainment against a spiraling electronic screen showing a scene reminiscent of a red-tinted scene from Blade Runner. Meanwhile, the bartender there told us that the previous night’s closing party for the Ordinals-focused Inscribing Nashville side event held at the same venue was so crowded that they sold out of their entire stock of about 4,000 glasses.

Tron party at Bitcoin Nasvhille (Bradley Keoun)

Friday

The following panel was probably the most technologically interesting panel we witnessed all week at the main conference. The panel covered the latest efforts of developer Robin Linus, along with OP_CTV creator Jeremy Rubin, Liam Eagan of Alpen Labs, and L2 Iterative research partner Weikeng Chen, to advance the groundbreaking BitVM design for practical application.

BitVM panel (Bradley Keoun)

On the sidelines of the Open Source Stage, Blockstream Research Director Andrew Poelstra, who probably understands the inner workings of Bitcoin programming better than anyone else, chatted freely with attendees about technical questions:

Blockstream Research Director Andrew Poelstra (second from left) (Bradley Keoun)

We ran into Ordinals and Runes creator Casey Rodarmor and Hell Money podcast host Erin Redwing, CEO of Inscribing Atlantis, while they were touring an exhibit just minutes before the scheduled panel discussion.

Hell Money podcast co-hosts Casey Rodarmor and Erin Redwing (Bradley Keoun)

Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Investment Management, entered the Music City Center, the conference’s main venue, through a side entrance.

Ark Investment Management CEO Cathie Wood (third from left) (Bradley Keoun)

It has absolutely nothing to do with Bitcoin, but this camouflage baseball cap from Polymarket, a prediction market built on the Polygon blockchain that has suddenly become the go-to place for betting on U.S. election scenarios, was the most up-to-date giveaway we saw at the conference.

Polymarket baseball cap (Bradley Keoun)

The architectural visuals of Music City Center were dazzling when viewed from the mezzanine balcony, which you had to pass through on your way to the invite-only Galaxy Digital happy hour event.

View of the main lobby of Music City Center in Bitcoin Nashville (Bradley Keoun)

Saturday

All week, my CoinDesk colleague Danny Nelson and I had been planning how best to cover Trump’s speech, exploring every angle. We had learned that there would be a special access area reserved for the press, but it was at the very back of the room. Danny calculated that our best chance of covering the event would be to line up with everyone else and try to find the best seat we could in the general seating area. We continually reevaluated our options throughout the day.

The doors to the venue didn’t open until 8 a.m., but I scored a spot around 7:20 a.m. About 20 minutes later, the line wrapped around the block.

Line of people waiting to enter Bitcoin Nashville conference venue (Bradley Keoun)

There was no water or food easily available after passing the internal security checkpoint of Nakamoto Stage and you had the option to leave, but anyone leaving the room had to go to the end of the line and the line never moved because the room was already over capacity and they weren’t letting anyone else in.

So like everyone else who had come this far, we were determined to sit in our seats for the next six hours waiting for Trump to arrive. Danny managed to sneak his laptop and a good camera in.

There were plenty of shows to watch, including a panel of 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 heavily when he went out of his way to point out that Trump had tweeted in 2019 that Bitcoin “looks like a scam.”

There was a brief moment of amusement when MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who came up with the idea of ​​adding Bitcoin to companies’ balance sheets, was soon surrounded by people taking selfies as he walked through the general seating area.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor surrounded by Bitcoin Nashville conference attendees (Bradley Keoun)

There were a lot of video cameras and photographers waiting for Trump to come on stage, a sign of the interest in mainstream news.

Photographers line up to watch former President Donald Trump speak at Bitcoin Nashville (Bradley Keoun)

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss of cryptocurrency exchange Gemini were seen walking near the roped-off VIP section at the front. There were rumors that Elon Musk might make an appearance as a special guest, and people in the crowd circulated social media posts showing his private jet heading to Nashville. (There was some confusion when Musk never showed up, and it was never really revealed who the special guest was.)

Conference officials beamed during an interview with Ron Paul, the retired U.S. congressman and former presidential candidate known for his slogan “End the Fed,” in a live news studio set up elsewhere in Music City Center.

Retired US Representative Ron Paul speaks in a video interview at Bitcoin Nashville (Bradley Keoun)

When Trump finally came on stage, he initially stood there speechless while Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA,” also known as “Proud to Be an American,” was played in its entirety. He received a standing ovation for the entire song.

We wrote Trump’s speech here.

The camera angle wasn’t great from where we sat; Trump’s teleprompter blocked the view. But it still turned out to be a good call to sit with the regulars — to really get a feel for the crowd, even without the camera angle. Which can best be described as boffo.

Below is the image taken from the lens of a smartphone camera, taken from where you would be sitting if you hadn’t gotten in line by 7:20am.

Former President Donald Trump on stage at the Bitcoin Nashville conference (Bradley Keoun)