There were rumors that Elon Musk would introduce former President Donald Trump before his keynote speech at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference. Musk had pledged to donate tens of millions to a Trump super PAC; he was close with JD Vance, Trump’s vice presidential nominee; he was into crypto and memes. People tracked Musk’s jet and noticed it was reducing altitude over Tennessee. It was happening. It would be historic.The Bitcoin Conference is an annual affair, and each year, it’s bigger and flashier than the one before. The last few were in Miami, Florida; this time, the conference was moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to take place only a week after the Republican National Convention. My seatmate on the flight down told me he never misses a conference. He and his friends call it “Bitcoin prom,” a weekend that is just as much about partying as it is about networking. But things were different this year: scheduled to speak at the conference were more than a half-dozen Republican politicians, prostrating themselves before the crypto gods, chasing money and support from a community that once defined itself by its resistance to the government. And then there was Trump, the centerpiece of it all, hoping to welcome the techno-libertarians and the finance bros into his ever-expanding coalition.The Bitcoiners were ready for Trump, and Trump was ready for their votes. But this marriage of cryptocurrency and the Republican political machine was off to a rocky start as the conference struggled to handle the logistics of hosting the former president and his retinue.It was, frankly, a shitshow.
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