đŸŸȘ Digital Asset Summit, Day 3

US president makes crypto conference history

Author

Byron Gilliam
March 20, 2025

“The electric telegraph
will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true.”

— Charles Dickens (1856)

Digital Asset Summit, Day 3

I’m a dedicated fan of UNC basketball — but too cheap to pay $11 per month to watch their games on ESPN.

I do, however, pay about $70 per ticket to go to all of their home games.

That works out to $1,000+ a year to watch 15 sporting events in person, instead of paying $122 a year to watch infinity sporting events at home on TV.

I’d pay a lot more, too, because watching basketball on TV is only about finding out who wins.

But watching basketball in person is about shouting your team to victory, persuading the other team to miss free throws and politely informing the refs when they get a call wrong. 

Better yet, it’s about being part of a community of like-minded people.

When you’re in a community of like-minded sports fans, the thrill of victory is amplified, and perhaps more importantly, the sting of defeat is mitigated.

On the odd occasion my team does lose a home game, I always find it disconcerting to see how angry people are about it on social media — people in the stadium are sad with the team while people on social media are angry at the team.

Something similar happens in crypto.

Sentiment in crypto often seems worse than crypto prices would warrant and I think that's because most crypto interactions happen online.

Studies have unsurprisingly found that interacting with people in real life engenders trust, improves well being, tempers aggressive behavior and reduces group-think.

Crypto, being terminally online, probably has few IRL interactions and therefore less trust, less well being, more aggressive behavior and more group-think than it should. 

But we do have conferences.

Paying to go to a conference might not always seem to make sense — travel, hotel and a ticket can get pricey and you can watch the panels online for free (as over 200,000 people did today).

But crypto conferences inject some humanity into an industry that’s badly in need of it.

You can find out if people you only know from Zoom calls are shorter or taller than you thought; you can stop someone in the hall who’s been ignoring your emails and they’ll happily talk to you; you can disagree with someone and they won’t be mad about it; you can make new friends.

There are no buzzer beaters to celebrate, unfortunately, but the important thing is that you’ll feel more celebratory at a crypto conference than you will on Crypto Twitter.

I’ll see you, IRL, at the next one.

Donald Trump, first crypto president 

The first crypto president made crypto conference history by addressing the Digital Asset Summit today.

No sitting president of the United States had ever addressed a crypto conference before.

Biden, of course, did not, but neither did Reagan, Eisenhower, Hoover, Lincoln or even Washington.

Shocking, I know, but true.

Fortunately, President Trump corrected that 249-year oversight at Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit this morning — truly an historic day.

Like a classic rock band on tour, he played the hits he knew we wanted to hear: Operation Chokepoint is over, stablecoins will extend the dollar’s dominance, the US government’s bitcoin will never, ever be sold.

It was a highly efficient talk, by the president’s loquacious standards, so almost all of these Polymarket bets resolved to “no”:

But the first crypto president got his point across: “Together we will make America the bitcoin and crypto capital of the world.”

I’m still not convinced that borderless crypto should have any capital, but it did feel historic to hear a president of the United States say it this morning. 

Michael Saylor, bitcoin chief evangelist

Listening to Michael Saylor evangelize bitcoin is a trip — like listening to a cross of Winston Churchill imploring you to storm the beaches of Normandy and Ralph Waldo Emerson telling you to go live in the woods.

I’m not sure I can do today’s tippy talk justice, so I’ll just let Mr. Saylor speak for himself (mostly):

“Bitcoin is THE asset. It’s better than cheese
goats or cattle, or pieces of paper that we call currency.”

“A lot of people focus on the asset, they forget the ideology.” 

(I was glad to hear that one, because I don’t get that sense from his X feed, which seems focused on the number-go-up aspect of bitcoin.)

“It’s a thing of natural beauty.” 

(Like a national park, I’d add, but in no need of the park rangers whose salaries are always draining the government’s coffers.)

Bitcoin is “a perfect machine made of perfect components.”

“Bitcoin is digital gold.” 

But it’s better, of course: “Maybe it’s time for a Bitcoin medal in the Olympics.” 

(Maybe, but I’m not sure that a winner biting their hardware wallet on the podium will make for a good photo op.)

On investing in analog vs. digital gold: “You're dead in 36 years with 2% inflation and with 0% inflation you live forever.”

(Meh. Who wants to live forever?)

This is financial advice: “If bitcoin is nothing more than digital gold, bitcoin is worth at least $200 trillion.”

It is more than that, of course: “Bitcoin is digital money.”

It’s not just money, either: “Bitcoin is perfect money. Nobody understood perfect money until Satoshi gave it to us.”

On the US electing its first crypto president: “Bitcoin is legitimate. It wasn’t legitimate four months ago.”

On the significance of the strategic bitcoin reserve: “The only thing the United States does not sell is its national parks, its nuclear stockpile and its bitcoin.” 

(Not strictly true: I don’t think you can buy the Liberty Bell, either, but you get the idea.)

On the US’s embrace of bitcoin: “That’s a shockwave that will ripple through the federal and state governments, the banking system, the rating agencies, the world.”

(Supersonic shockwaves, Saylor also explained, happen when the air can’t get out of the way fast enough and bitcoin is going too fast for companies and governments to react.)

This, too, is financial advice: “If bitcoin’s not going to zero, it’s going to a million.”

(I don’t give financial advice, but I don’t think it’s going to zero.)

“Bitcoin is immortal 
there’s nothing else that you own that will last 100 years.”

On buying one bitcoin: “All you’re doing is buying 1/21 millionth of all the money in the world for ever.”

(OK, fine, take my money!)

“Bitcoin is a digital defense system.”

(This one seems dangerous to me: If it’s digital defense, governments will try to control it.)

“As the world gets educated they’re going to sell their inferior assets and buy bitcoin.”

More financial advice: “Buy bitcoin and let the capital from the rest of the world flow in and enrich you.”

“If you need money
it’s there for the taking.”

“The rich, the comfortable and the arrogant have no need for it.”

On the US government holding bitcoin: “Any institution that embraces bitcoin is made more virtuous, rational, ethical and secure.”

(I’m not sure how, but I guess it’s worth a try!)

Saylor is great at reasoning by analogy: Refusing to buy bitcoin now, he said, is like refusing to have bought the Louisiana Territory in 1803 because it was too much of a horse ride to get there. 

(I paraphrased that one because I couldn’t type fast enough.)

In case you still think bitcoin is a pet rock: “Every single day I learn something new and beautiful about bitcoin. It’s like an astrophysicist learning the mysteries of the universe.”

After listing his 21 truths about bitcoin: “Please, go tell someone the truth about bitcoin.”

Overheard:

“True fundamental investing has become possible [in crypto] because there are now value producing protocols.” — Cosmo Jiang, Pantera

“They’re businesses at the end of the day.” — Areta’s Karl-Martin Ahrend, on crypto protocols

“Let’s be real — the liquidity in Tornado Cash came from North Korea.” — Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorne 

“We’re suit-coiners now.” — Alex Thorne

“Bitcoin will cause a blowup at a GSIB [global systematically important bank].” — Custodia Bank’s Caitlin Long 

DAS day 3 takeaway:

Pad Thai with extra peanuts,  spring rolls and a side of existential crisis.

What I’m looking forward to tomorrow: 

UNC vs. Ole Miss, 4:05 pm ET.

No sleep til Brooklyn

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