Bitcoin Nashville 2024: A Historic Gathering
Bitcoin As a Movement
“We are living through a change of historical season, a transformation in the way people organize their livelihoods and defend themselves that is so far-reaching that it will inevitably transform the whole of society. The change will be so profound, in fact, that to understand it will require taking almost nothing for granted” (The Sovereign Individual).
Written in 1997 by William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson, the words above embody the sentiment of Bitcoin 2024, which was held in Nashville, TN, from July 25 to 27, 2024.
While Bitcoin largely exists in the digital realm, it’s conferences such as Bitcoin 2024 in the physical realm that remind attendees of the impact this technology is having across political, industrial, and societal spheres of society.
In an interview on the Galaxy Brains podcast, David Bailey, Founder and CEO of the company that organizes the annual Bitcoin Conference, BTC Inc., said: “This is a movement… Bitcoin doesn’t happen on its own. It happens because the people who are a part of Bitcoin go and make it happen.”
Due to the efforts of key individuals who believe in the transformative power of Bitcoin as a technology, the Bitcoin movement is growing.
Caption: Bitcoin 2024’s Nakamoto Stage at Music City Center in Nashville, TN.
Photo credits: Ella Hough
Bitcoin 2024 brought together Presidential candidates, politicians, CEOs of public companies, community builders, academics, activists, developers, students, families, investors, and media representatives alike. Notable figures present this year included former President Donald J. Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Russell Brand, Tucker Carlson, Howard Lutnick, Dan Morehead, Russell Okung, Michael Saylor, Anthony Scaramucci, Edward Snowden, Lyn Ulbricht, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Cathie Wood.
It was the largest Bitcoin conference organized by BTC Inc yet. The following is a high-level summary of event logistics:
Attendees: 35,000
Livestream Views: 1.456 million
Talks: 193 across 6 Stages (Galaxy had representatives on 3 panels)
Speakers: 444
Side Events: 84
Mini-Conferences: 8
Bitcoin Enters the Political Sphere
The growing importance of Bitcoin in U.S. politics and government was the most noticeable development in the Bitcoin movement as reflected by the profile of speakers in attendance at Bitcoin Nashville and their statements at the conference.
Bitcoin 2024 featured 14 politicians as speakers:
Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States (R)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Presidential Candidate (I)
Vivek Ramaswamy, Former Presidential Candidate (R)
Ron Paul, Former United States Representative (R)
Senator Bill Hagerty, TN (R)
Senator Marsha Blackburn, TN (R)
Senator Cynthia Lummis, WY (R)
Senator Tim Scott, SC (R)
Wiley Nickel, NC-13, US Congressman (D)
Ro Khanna, CA-17, US Congressman (D)
Tulsi Gabbard, Former United States Representative (D until 2022; I - present)
Bernie Moreno, Candidate for Senate, OH (R)
John Deaton, Candidate for Senate, MA (R)
Sam Brown, Candidate for Senate, NV (R)
These politicians shared plans to build legislation specifically for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. For over a decade, the crypto industry in the U.S. has operated in an uncertain regulatory environment. While this reality will not change overnight, it is clear the Bitcoin movement is making headway in transforming the views and minds of many important politicians and lawmakers alike.
On July 27, former President Donald J. Trump with the mindset that “inflation is a stealth taxation” and view that “Bitcoin is the new steel industry,” proposed:
On Day 1 in office, firing SEC Chair Gary Gensler and pardoning Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.
Shutting down Operation Choke Point 2.0.
Appointing a bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council that would write regulations in 100 days.
Ceasing the creation of CBDCs in the U.S.
Defending American’s right to self-custody.
Creating a framework for safe and responsible expansion of stablecoins to extend the dominance of US dollars to new frontiers worldwide.
Delivering massive tax cuts and cutting unnecessary burdensome regulations that make it difficult to build a business, especially a crypto business, in the US.
Ending the inflation nightmare and bringing down energy prices.
Setting up the U.S. to become a bitcoin mining powerhouse.
Keeping 100% of all bitcoins owned by the US as strategic national stockpile.
Trump concluded by wishing attendees “a good time with [their] bitcoin and [their] crypto and everything else that [their] playing with and we’re gonna make that one of the greatest industries on earth.” As Trump exited to stage right after his keynote, Senator Cynthia Lummis immediately came onto the stage, entering with a physical proposal in her hand “to supercharge the US dollar by establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve to fortify the dollar against rising inflation.”
Prior to Trump, on July 25, Independent Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to:
“Sign an executive order directing the US Treasury to purchase 550 bitcoins daily until the US amasses a reserve of at least 4 million” (nearly 20% of the total bitcoin supply).
Transfer the 204,000 bitcoins currently held by the government into a Federal Reserve strategic reserve.
Make bitcoin transactions non-taxable and allow bitcoin to be exchanged tax-free.
Like Trump, RFK Jr. said he sees “bitcoin [as] the off-ramp from the inflation highway of doom.”
While there was a lot of high signal programming from politicians at the event, there was also criticism that the political element of the conference usurped the limelight away from developers and the added security made the conference experience onerous on attendees.
Since the end of the conference, two notable news headlines that further highlight the growing adoption of Bitcoin as a financial asset of political importance and value include:
July 30: Russia legalizes bitcoin and crypto for global payments
July 30: Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon on CNBC says, "bitcoin has a legitimate case as a store of value.”
Two other major narratives that ran alongside the increasing politicization of Bitcoin at the conference this year were artificial intelligence (AI) and Layer 2 rollups (L2s).
Bitcoin Mining Shifting Focus To AI
Throughout the conference, discussions focused on optimizing revenue by balancing bitcoin mining with AI and high-performance computing (HPC). Simply put, if one has access to power, capital, and infrastructure, it is important to reexamine then how best to energize every electron in the most profitable way for shareholders.
On July 25, Galaxy Co-Head of Mining, Brian Wright, spoke alongside Russell Cann (Core Scientific), Amanda Fabiano (Fabiano Consulting), and Glenn Harrison (IREN), to discuss how large Bitcoin mining operators can make wise economic decisions. Takeaways included:
Optimizing power strategy is critical when thinking about long-term growth and extracting the full value of ASICs over their useful lives
Access to cheap capital hinders some miners from diving deeper into AI/HPC because it's costly to build out
Fee volatility is likely driving hashrate volatility
Attracting the right talent is also critical for running a successful AI/HPC operation
For further insights on the convergence of AI and Bitcoin mining, read Galaxy’s 2024 Bitcoin Mining Mid-Year report, The Rise of the Gigawatt.
Bitcoin L2 Landscape Heats Up
There were roughly 10 Bitcoin L2 projects that had team members take the stage to educate the audience about the importance of scaling Bitcoin's base layer. From the Bitcoin L2 specific panels, it was clear that there are a handful of teams racing to deploy finished products by the end of this year. The presentations were primarily focused on sharing improvement to the speed of ZK-Proof verification on Bitcoin L1. Bitcoin Rollup teams also spent time discussing the recent developments for fraud proofs using BitVM2, the newest iteration of BitVM, an off-chain Turing complete virtual machine launched in December 2023.
Additionally, the Bitcoin L2 bridge discussions highlighted the need for new opcodes that enable spending conditions on Bitcoin such as OP_CAT and OP_CTV. The general view among developers at the conference was that enabling OP_CAT through a change to the Bitcoin protocol is the only way to create a trustless unilateral bridge between Bitcoin and L2s in the short-term. Although Starkware's Bitcoin L2 side event had lower attendance than panels at the main event, this small side event had the highest signal founders and Bitcoin researchers in attendance.
For further insights on the Bitcoin L2s landscape, read this Galaxy Research report by Gabe Parker exploring the idea of Bitcoin Rollups using Bitcoin as a data availability layer.
Conclusion
Reflecting on Bitcoin 2024, it is awe-inspiring to know that 35,000 people from around the world expended their time and energy to gather for 3 days in Nashville, Tennessee to celebrate Bitcoin and its core values of self-sovereignty, open-source development, privacy, and censorship-resistance. 15 years ago, these values were appreciated by a comparatively smaller group of people. In rooms where the importance of Bitcoin was shared, you could hear a pin drop. Now, these rooms are not rooms but conference halls.
“…the freedom of speech, even more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society…If many parties speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge” – Eric Hughes, A Cypherpunks’ Manifesto, 9 March 1993
News Updates
The following is a summary of all the major news and announcements shared during the week of Bitcoin Nashville 2024:
Financial
July 23: Metaplanet Inc. announced a partnership with Hoseki to launch a bitcoin proof of reserves system.
July 23: Kraken successfully distributed bitcoin and bitcoin cash from the Mt. Gox estate back to creditors.
July 24: Fold, First Pureplay Financial Services Company Powered by Bitcoin To Go Public on Nasdaq.
July 24: VanEck predicted a bull case of $52 million per bitcoin in 2050.
July 25: James Seyffart estimated “20-25% of BlackRock revenue flow this year has come from the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).”
July 26: Publicly traded company OneMedNet announced a bitcoin treasury strategy after an investment from Off the Chain Capital.
July 26: The State of Michigan added $6.6 million in bitcoin ETFs to its pension fund
July 27: Cantor Fitzgerald launched a bitcoin-backed lending product (starting with $2b)
July 29: The US government moved $2 billion of seized BTC, two days after Trump’s speech.
Policy
July 25: Senator Roger Marshall, KS (R) withdrew support from Warren’s Digital Asset Anti Money Laundering Act (DAAMLA).
July 26: 17 Democrats wrote to the Democratic National Convention to shift away from the anti-bitcoin stance.
Industry
July 25: Documentary God Bless Bitcoin premiered in 22 languages and is available for free download.
July 25: Metaplanet Acquired Exclusive License to Launch Bitcoin Magazine Japan
July 25: MicroStrategy and Bitcoin Magazine Launched “Bitcoin for Corporations”
July 27: Fedi x Mi Primer Bitcoin collaboration. MPB Bitcoin Diploma workbook will now be a module on the Fedi app, giving everyone access to bitcoin education.
Energy & Mining
July 22: Bitcoin Mining Documentary “Dirty Coin” set goal to stream on 2,000 screens on October 31
July 23: Foundry Announced their 'Foundry Donate' Initiative to Support Open-Source Bitcoin Community
July 25: MARA purchased $100 Million of bitcoin
July 26: MicroBT unveiled its latest WhatsMiner M6XS+ series
July 28: CLSK executives met with Former President Donald J. Trump and Senators Blackburn and Hagerty to discuss Bitcoin policy, strategy, energy, and security.
Academic
July 22: Report released from The Nakamoto Project, Understanding Bitcoin Adoption in the United States: Politics, Demographics, & Sentiment
July 28: The University of Wyoming Bitcoin Research Institute is announced.
Product & Tech
July 22: Beta went live of bitcoin devkit
July 23: Taproot Assets on Lightning released
July 24: Proton Wallet is launched.
July 26: Casa announced integration with YubiKey to make self-custody easier.
July 26: Ledger announced Ledger Flex and Ledger Security Key
July 27: Mempool Accelerator Launch of Open Beta
July 27: Nunchuk entered partnership with TwentyTwo, bringing more self-custody solutions to mobile devices
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