{"id":3681,"date":"2025-06-03T20:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T20:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/03\/vegas-comedown-or-was-bitcoin-2025-too-noisy\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T20:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T20:17:13","slug":"vegas-comedown-or-was-bitcoin-2025-too-noisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/03\/vegas-comedown-or-was-bitcoin-2025-too-noisy\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegas Comedown, or Was Bitcoin 2025 Too Noisy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

Vegas Comedown, or Was Bitcoin 2025 Too Noisy?<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cShitcoin Magazine,\u201d tweeted Bitcoin educator and author Knut Svanholm<\/a> about the event<\/a> that BTC Inc, the parent company of Bitcoin Magazine, organized in Las Vegas last week. Dancing cows<\/a> dashed across my feed. \u201cIt\u2019s a political convention now,\u201d I overheard two attendees saying as they exited the Nakamoto stage<\/a>, heads shaking. Nigel Farage<\/a>, the inflammatory British politician and leader of Reform UK, was shouting on stage<\/a> about becoming prime minister. A somewhat calmer personality, Vice President JD Vance spoke about \u201ccrypto\u201d and thanked Coinbase.<\/p>\n

Word on the (online) street is that Bitcoin 2025 was captured by political and shitcoin-y interests. Our own technical editor, Shinobi<\/a>, opted out of mass surveillance and bailed for freer pastures at the Oslo Freedom Forum. Erik Cason was uncharacteristically polite (\u201cshitcoin adjacent<\/a>\u201d), though he was there in person, happily signing the Cryptosovereignty <\/em>book<\/a> that Bitcoin Magazine Books<\/a> published in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of my Bitcoiner friends come here anymore,\u201d said Ben, an entrepreneur who runs a Bitcoin business, on the fence about coming back next year.<\/p>\n

Whenever I mention that I work for Bitcoin Magazine, I usually have to field questions about shitcoinery and political shilling (Are you a MAGA dude now?!<\/em>). Coming to Vegas was inspection time for me \u2014 or at least a chance to see what it is that troubles so many people.<\/p>\n

With the glamor of the Strip itself and its sensory overload, it\u2019d be easy to be dazzled \u2014 plus<\/em>, it was the first time I had left Fort Europa for the land of the free in years, first time in Vegas, and first time at an American Bitcoin event. It\u2019d be easy for me to simply dismiss the haters by paraphrasing Taylor (\u201chaters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate\u2026\u201d). <\/p>\n

While sitting down in the whale pass area the Deep<\/a>, a hipster-looking gentleman started talking to me about how Bitcoin is fundamentally broken and that I should investigate his energy-based shitcoin instead. Waiting for Vance\u2019s speech in the main hall, I was introduced to three young dudes dressed up to perfection and barely out of college, at the conference \u201cto land a job in the industry\u201d \u2014 i.e., grifters. A mid-60s technology dude interjected himself into the conversation, bragged about how he worked on tech for Microsoft in the \u201990s, and explained how blockchain (not Bitcoin) is the future \u2014 only to have us scan the NFC card he had implanted in his left hand. Ugh<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Thus, it wasn\u2019t difficult to see<\/em> the things all these people online had objected to: Our conference was a party<\/a>, or \u201can elaborate Bitcoin extraction scheme<\/a>,\u201d a \u201ccircus, shitcoin fest<\/a>,\u201d or stablecoin mania<\/a>. Plus:<\/p>\n

\n

pic.twitter.com\/VfD4ViXlFS<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Daniel Prince (@Princey21M) May 30, 2025<\/a>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

They\u2019re not wrong. But honestly, you don\u2019t have to look. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an underappreciated order to the known universe: To each successful movement or phenomenon, parasites and fraudsters are drawn<\/strong>. It\u2019s why the shitcoin guys are around Bitcoin events and why the politicians are pandering to our cause. Vegas itself<\/em> is the center of gravity for that sort of thing \u2014 gambling, nudity, alcohol, prostitution, and other dopamine-inducing stimulants. I first titled this take <\/em>What Hookers in Vegas Can Teach Us About Politicians at Bitcoin 2025; <\/em><\/strong>the simple observation is that fraudsters, grifters, and scammers go to where the value is. Parasites feed off healthy, growing, flourishing organisms.<\/p>\n

\u201cScammers flooding in,\u201d as Tomer Strolight post-conference tweeted<\/a>, is thus the least surprising thing ever.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re succeeding, growing, and becoming if not respectable then at least a household name. The FT and WSJ covering us feel somewhere between \u201c\u2026then they laugh at you\u201c and \u201c\u2026then they fight you\u201d stages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Running around meeting people \u2014 hardcore Bitcoiners I\u2019ve only ever met online, authors and writers and editors I\u2019ve worked with (they were all<\/em> in Vegas, since that was the place to be\u2026) \u2014 and attending the sum total of three<\/em> presentations, I felt what Wayne Vaughan of Bitcoin First described:<\/p>\n

\n

The Bitcoin Conference 2025 was different and in many ways disappointing. <\/p>\n

Good:
The private events were excellent opportunities to reconnect with old friends and meet new people.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin has grown up. We\u2019re finally legit.<\/p>\n

Neutral:
The conference was dominated by politics and\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Wayne Vaughan (@WayneVaughan) May 30, 2025<\/a>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

You can just meet people, just do<\/em> things.<\/p>\n

To make an obvious analogy: The internet is littered with porn, gambling, and cat videos, and it\u2019s the most successful technology in a generation. You don\u2019t have<\/em> to look; you can just work and provide value instead of wasting away your life talking to shitcoiners or being annoyed at politicians and other fraudsters doing their things.<\/p>\n

\u201cCozying up to any government is a bad idea,\u201d concluded the WSJ piece, citing a \u201cwing\u201d of purist Bitcoin that we all feel. Yes, agreed. But the puritism that its opposite requires condemns us to irrelevancy \u2014 belittles and betrays the broader mission.<\/p>\n

So yeah: the grifters, the parasites, the politicians, and the financial engineers are here. Good for them. That they\u2019re here is a sign of victory.<\/p>\n

Knock me over with a feather, haters.<\/p>\n

Come join us for Bitcoin 2026<\/a> and see for yourself<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

This post Vegas Comedown, or Was Bitcoin 2025 Too Noisy?<\/a> first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine<\/a> and is written by Joakim Book<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine Vegas Comedown, or Was Bitcoin 2025 Too Noisy? \u201cShitcoin Magazine,\u201d tweeted Bitcoin educator and author Knut Svanholm about the event that BTC Inc, the parent company of Bitcoin Magazine, organized in Las Vegas last week. Dancing cows dashed across my feed. \u201cIt\u2019s a political convention now,\u201d I overheard two attendees saying as they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bitcoin"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}