At Bitcoin 2025, Crypto Purists and the MAGA Faithful Collide

WIRED

2 days ago

Jun 5, 2025 5:00 AM Trump's inner circle has taken over one of the biggest crypto conferences in the world—drowning out protests from diehard bitcoiners who believe their 'nerd money' shouldn't be political. US vice president JD Vance delivers a keynote address at the Bitcoin Conference on May 28, 2025, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photograph:'The Secret Service is a little bit nervous because I told them, 'These bitcoin guys really like guns,'' US vice president JD Vance tells the audience at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas on May 28. ''But they really like the president and vice president of the United States, too.''
The cheers that ignite the room leave no reason to doubt Vance's statement. Why wouldn't they like him? He's the first US vice president to own bitcoin (worth between $250,000 and $500,000 per an August 2024 disclosure).
And though the excitement was more palpable when president Donald Trump spoke at last year's conference in Nashville, Tennessee, the crowd believes that of the two, Vance has the crypto chops. As Trump supporter Kelly Chandler puts it: 'We're blessed to have an administration that's embracing bitcoin, and JD actually understands it.'
Many of the 35,000 conference goers identify as conservatives fed up with 'woke nonsense.' But not everyone's his fan. 'About a week ago, if you'd asked me, 'Who is JD Vance?' I'd say, 'I don't know, some politician,'' says Adam Walker, 42, a Nevada resident and self-described 'political atheist.' He claims that setting up a strategic bitcoin reserve in the US, which Trump signed an order for in March, 'strays from [bitcoin's] original cypherpunk ideals.'
In the hall at the Venetian Hotel's Convention and Expo Center are three of Elon Musk's Cybertrucks, two of Trump's sons, and a MAGA table selling sequined Trump jackets. This year, longtime conference goers describe an influx of 'normies'—'sycophants of both' bitcoin and the state, says bitcoin developer Casey Rodarmor, 'even though these things are in conflict.'
Guys sporting American-flag-covered cowboy hats weave past men wearing turbans. Though the crowd remains overwhelmingly male and white, moms push strollers by the Black Blockchain Summit's booth and head to the kids zone. Baseball caps that appear to support MAGA actually read 'Bitcoin Made in America' or 'Make Frying Oil Tallow Again' (a giveaway from the restaurant Steak n' Shake, which started accepting bitcoin in May). Tax accountants hand out branded Tide pens next to a company offering shirts with George Washington stomping on the letters 'IRS.'
But underneath the patriotic decor remains a core of bitcoin holders who stand by the technology's original ethos, which is firmly anti-state, as it was built to operate outside of governments and without centralized intermediaries. They frown upon the president issuing a Trump memecoin, which, with the family's other crypto endeavors, reportedly bumped their wealth by roughly $2.9 billion.
At last year's conference, excitement swelled around the idea of electing Trump, the country's first bitcoin-embracing president, and ending what most felt was presidentBiden's crypto-oppressive regime.
'Everybody in the world wants bitcoin,' Eric Trump, the recently announced cofounder and chief strategy officer of bitcoin mining company American Bitcoin, asserts, citing royal families, financial institutions, and family offices. 'Look what Truth Social did,' he says of the publicly traded company, in which Trump and family own a majority stake, raising $2.5 billion to build a 'bitcoin treasury.' Both he and Donald Trump Jr. give their estimates for bitcoin's future price (more than $105,000 at time of writing) in one year—between $150,000 and $175,000.
Now that Trump is in office, launching his own crypto ventures and asking for legislation establishing (light) digital asset regulations to appear on his desk by August, his supporters' voices drown out those of the bitcoiners who warn how abandoning crypto's principles could endanger their community.
'Trying to [politicize bitcoin] is really dangerous for everybody, because the message of what bitcoin does … gets glossed over [as it becomes] this tool for the Republican Party,' says Erik Cason, author of the book Cryptosovereignty .
In a panel titled 'Are Bitcoiners Becoming Sycophants of the State,' he elaborates to a crowd on the conference floor: 'The amount of dick-sucking going on towards the political establishment here is shameful and disgusting,' he says. 'You can own bitcoin today and exit from this fucked-up establishment that's designed to steal from you and redistribute that money towards war and horror.'
Among resounding cheers, an older man stands up and pumps his fist in agreement. A man behind him slaps his leg emphatically.
Politicians 'need us more than we need them,' Bruce Fenton, founder and CEO of fintech company Chainstone Labs, continues. 'We should refuse meetings with them … We've invented nerd money that they can't stop with all their tanks.'
Not only is the state dangerous as a vehicle of war, they say; it's also risky to align with one political party, because it could provoke a reactionary backlash. Next time Democrats take over, Cason fears, they'll 'go after bitcoin and crypto hard.'
Bitcoiners 'need to understand that we're our own political contingency now, and pandering to either side is a massive disservice,' he tells me after the conference. 'Bitcoin isn't for the right or the left. It's for the bottom, not the top.'
Bitcoin purists might have hoped for vocal support from Ross Ulbricht, the former operator of the dark-web market Silk Road (where users could use bitcoin to buy drugs). Ulbricht became a symbol for crypto operating unburdened by the state's rules when he was sentenced to life in prison in 2015. Trump pardoned him earlier this year.
Ulbricht's freedom has been such a key issue for the bitcoin community that David Bailey, CEO of BTC Inc, which organized Bitcoin 2025, made sure to communicate to Trump during the 2024 campaign how high priority pardoning Ulbricht was for his voting bloc. But Ulbricht's appearance at the conference is paradoxical: His anti-state sentiment has been sanctioned by the very state he wanted to bypass.
'The impression people have is that bitcoiners just care about money,' Ulbricht's mother, Lyn, who's been attending the Bitcoin Conference for years working to free her son, tells me, 'but many are idealistic and caring.' A movement of donors and activists large and small in the bitcoin, crypto, and Libertarian communities got her son out of prison, she says.
When Ulbricht walks onto the main stage, lanky and self-assured in a long, red tie, he doesn't thank Trump directly (he's 'thankful that we elected him'). Nor does he thank Bailey for his advocacy, or even his mother for her tireless efforts. He thanks the audience, whom he urges to 'stay true to our principles'—freedom, decentralization, and, he stresses, unity. 'It's more important than ever,' he says, as bitcoin's popularity spreads.
Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht speaks at The Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas. Photograph:Photograph:But unity is hard to maintain when politics get involved, especially polarizing politicians like Trump, whose personally-enriching crypto activities have some in the community on edge.
However, some bitcoin holders are willing to forgive Trump's memecoin antics. Dylan Liptov, 27, an employee of the crypto exchange Kraken, concedes it's acceptable because Trump 'supports crypto so much' and gives coin holders benefits, like the recent dinner Trump held for around 200 of the coin's biggest buyers. Word at the conference was that both food quality and the brevity of Trump's appearance at the dinner disappointed, but one woman wearing a bitcoin-patterned dress and touting the 'Q movement' (referencing conspiracy theory QAnon) still expresses her wish to have attended, had she bought enough Trump coins.
Others cite more self-serving reasons for fawning over Trump's crypto plays. Kevin, a 25-year-old from Los Angeles wearing a leopard-print hat (he withheld his last name citing privacy reasons), says he 'loves' the state's involvement 'because I make more money.'
The political establishment buying into bitcoin makes 'number go up' (a favorite crypto meme) for investors like Kevin, but the reverse works similarly. If people keep buying bitcoin, it will pump the bags of politically connected holders, like the president's sons. While Vance's speech centers on bitcoiners staying involved in politics (to keep voting Republican), when Eric and Donald Jr. take the stage hours later, they encourage audiences to keep buying bitcoin.
Their message resounds globally. Will Hernandez, president of the Bitcoin Association of El Salvador, tells me how the conference gave his government 'a shitload of tickets' and, at past events in Nashville and Miami, a free platform to support its policy of making bitcoin legal tender, comping booths worth $80,000 for the country's conference-going contingency. With US adoption, he says, everyone should take bitcoin seriously as an asset class. On the main stage, Bilal Bin Saqib, CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council, says that his government is setting up its own strategic bitcoin reserve, inspired by the US.
'China's top priority is always to watch what the [US] vice president and president do,' says Roger Huang, author of Would Mao Hold Bitcoin? He cites China's former finance vice-minister saying the country should study crypto as the US changes policies. 'Now, that [bitcoin] is table talk in DC, it will be table talk … around the world,' Huang says, but it could come at the expense of its intended purpose, with fewer individuals using it for 'self-sovereignty,' like by storing cryptocurrency in their own private wallets rather than on exchanges like Coinbase or investing in bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
'You get a yacht,' he says, 'but you lose all your values.'