The MAGA and Bitcoin worlds collide today in Nashville

The Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, is kicking into overdrive as President Trump is set to give the keynote address to a large, raucous audience. The Bitcoin Conference is the largest event in the world, bringing together people who work and invest in the space. Some of the smartest and wealthiest players in the crypto world are here to drink, mingle, and extol the virtues of a currency with an outlaw ethos.

Blaze Media has been covering the event and interviewing politicians and CEOs about the future of Bitcoin and how it will affect Americans. Security has been extremely tight because of Trump’s appearance and RFK Jr. speaking yesterday. Multiple layers of intense Secret Service checkpoints are in place, causing massive delays for the thousands of attendees entering the main auditorium.

Trump is rumored to announce his plan for America to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve that will radically transform the financial landscape.

The conference kicked off yesterday with a slate of speakers talking about the world of finance, fiat currencies printing their way into the inflationary abyss, and how Bitcoin can provide a decentralized solution for people seeking to disengage from the Big Government and Big Finance.

What began as an elegant and secure peer-to-peer network, confined to a small part of the internet, has transformed into a financial powerhouse worth nearly $1.4 trillion. The Bitcoin world has always attracted dissident thinkers and characters who enjoy being outside the mainstream of politics and standard financial thinking. It has been gaining value and influence for years, but the lockdowns in 2020, caused by COVID-19, launched Bitcoin into the stratosphere. As people were stuck at home and governments printed trillions of dollars out of thin air, the idea of a secure, deflationary alternative became attractive.

Bitcoin has always been a refuge for libertarian-minded people who did not trust modern monetary theory, based on Keynesian economics, where central banks can print money to infinity to solve any problem and fund any war. Because Bitcoin has a hard limit to the number of Bitcoins that can ever be created, it has more in common with gold or silver than dollars or euros. The history of Bitcoin is complicated and lengthy, but politicians traditionally ignored it or even treated it with disdain. The Bitcoin true believers often viewed politicians with contempt. However, there has been a marked shift, exemplified by this conference, of politicians paying attention.

Yesterday, Robert Kennedy Jr. gave a rousing speech extolling the virtues of Bitcoin as a safeguard of liberty and a defense against government intrusion in our finances. He also talked about his plan to have the U.S. government start buying Bitcoin to match the value of our national gold reserves.

Michael Saylor addresses the crowd. By Peter Gietl

Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the probable Senate Banking Committee chair in a possible GOP-led Senate next year, announced for the first time his pro-Bitcoin position. He took the stage along with Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), and they signaled that the government, and specifically the GOP, is ready to work with Bitcoin rather than trying to regulate it into oblivion. They are also courting the considerable wealth in the room for campaign contributions.

The real news will be when President Donald Trump will take the stage to lay out his vision for the future of Bitcoin in America. He’s already made news by becoming the first presidential candidate to accept donations in Bitcoin. He is rumored to announce his plan for America to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve that will radically transform the financial landscape. We’re in uncharted territory, but if this happens, it will fully bring Bitcoin to the mainstream and chart a new path for money and central banks. We’ll be here ready to break any news.