Maybe that’s due to a real lack of actual celebrities who want to come out and endorse the technology, but it could also be that Bitcoin, beyond its admittedly large market cap, has yet to really capture the zeitgeist the way other crypto projects have.
There’s also a real sense of desperation for some kind of star power that can elevate Bitcoin from digital gold for the tencho-libertarian set to the true mainstream cultural movement it needs to be in order to actually catch on.
But it wasn’t Bitcoin that was responsible for the 2021 crypto boom, it was Ethereum, the flashier alternative cryptocurrency that supports the majority of NFTs.
That’s led to a palpable void in Miami this week—one that conference organizer BTC Media and the various sponsors and vendors are hell-bent on filling with a bizarre mix of fairly prominent voices from the world of finance and random celebrities.
Peterson, the controversial right-wing psychologist; former presidential candidate Andrew Yang; Shark Tank‘s Kevin O’Leary; Paypal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel; a handful of well-known athletes; and, of course, a bevy of homegrown crypto influencers like entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano.
Bitcoin may be a household name, but it’s still far off from replacing other currencies—a techno-utopian outcome that’s the stuff of crypto evangelists’ fantasies.
In fact, the issue of what influencers or celebrities can do for the Bitcoin community came up directly on Thursday morning, during a panel featuring Odell Beckham Jr., Serena Williams, Aaron Rodgers, and Cash App’s crypto product lead, Miles Suter.
It was pretty far away from the high energy radiating from the world of NFTs, and it was clear that the event’s bigger names aren’t sure what else to do other than just tell the audience to buy Bitcoin over and over again.
In fact, Cash App’s Suter said one of the company’s major initiatives this year is to try and make Bitcoin more relatable, which includes easier payment processes and a more intuitive QR code system.
One startup with a decent-sized presence at the convention, a company called TradeZing, is trying to figure out how to grow major influencers and connect them with existing mainstream celebrities.
Edelson admits that TradeZing is a livestreaming platform that’s fairly close to how Twitch works, but he hopes it can capitalize on the trading livestreams that made people like Portnoy a hit in the Bitcoin community.
Foodgod is attending a bunch of Bitcoin parties this week in Miami and will be advising TradeZing on how to help influencers on the platform grow.
But that flies in the face of the conference’s wilder, bawdier attractions—the big robot bull statue, the wild after-parties, the endless panels about cancel culture and Twitter drama.
And these competing attitudes within the world of Bitcoin came to a head on Thursday afternoon, when chaos briefly erupted in the conference’s main stage when it was announced that Barstool founder Portnoy had dropped out of his much talked-about panel, titled “Bitcoin Is Fuck You Money”.