Trump’s speech is an hour behind. A half hour into the wait, restless attendees start chanting “Trump.” The woman sitting in front of me murmurs her own chant:
“Bitcoin, bitcoin—that’s what they should be chanting.” She must have gotten the memo: It’s not a Trump rally; it’s a bitcoin rally.
When Trump finally takes the stage to “God Bless the USA,” he basks in the glory of his standing ovation, “thrilled…to become the first American president ever to address a bitcoin event.” His next step is to pander to his supporters in the audience. “This is the kind of spirit that will help us make America great again. I stand before you today filled with respect and admiration,” for what he later calls all the “high IQ individuals” in the room. He reiterates past promises (freeing Ross on day one, never creating a Central Bank Digital Currency) and tacks on some new ones (the plan for a US strategic bitcoin reserve, which senator Lummis details in a brief speech after Trump’s; the firing of SEC chairman Gary Gensler, a crypto industry nemesis). He promises no one in the industry will have to move to China for jobs and says we’ll continue to use fossil fuels. We’ll have so much electricity, he says, “you’ll say please, please Mr. President … no more electricity, sir, we have enough!”
He disses his political opponents, as per usual, and promises no one in his administration will “go woke,” a sentiment he maybe knows will resonate with the bitcoin crowd. But he shows an even better understanding with a basic appeal to audience’s wallets: Under his leadership, “bitcoin and crypto will skyrocket like never before.” The crowd goes wild.
Exiting the conference center after the speech, I spot a dollop of side-swept orange hair disappearing down the escalator. I follow him.
“It was a very orange talk,” the Trump impersonator, Atlanta-based comedian Josh Warren says when I ask how the keynote went, immediately pretending to be Trump. “We’ve been asking people who’s more orange, RFK or me, and it’s coming astoundingly that I’m still the orange man.”
Warren’s not a bitcoin guy, but his shtick got a better reception here than at the Libertarian National convention in DC. When I ask about his vote, he says it’ll be “for comedy.”
“We’re just here to disrupt the status quo. Humanity is killing comedy,” he says, seriously, before jumping back into the Trump act to add how the “deep state doesn’t want you talking about things that make you think anymore.”
In his introduction to Trump’s keynote, Bailey had called bitcoin “not a red party thing. It’s not a blue party thing. It’s an orange party thing [referencing the color of the bitcoin logo].” Before he joked that an orange party should be run by an orange man, he had a point. Bitcoin 2024 ticketholders aren’t necessarily people who would define themselves as Trump enthusiasts, though the majority that spoke to WIRED seemingly plan to vote for him. Moreso, they’re people who have traditionally distrusted the government, an opinion that more mainstream swathes of society now share.
“I was born conservative, went to liberalism. Now, going back to conservativism, mainly because of what I’ve seen in our country recently,” says Andrew Campbell, who drove in from Texas and sports a bitcoin pin along with his naturally bitcoin-orange hair. “I think we’ve gone too far left, and we need to snap back a little and recenter.”