Political and Financial Heavyweights Converge at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville

The Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville features prominent speakers like Donald Trump, Michael Saylor, and Cathie Wood, highlighting the intersection of politics and cryptocurrency with a focus on Bitcoin future.

The Bitcoin 2024 conference kicked off on July 25 in Nashville, Tennessee, attracting record crowds with high-profile speakers such as Donald Trump, Michael Saylor, Cathie Wood, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Russell Brand, and Edward Snowden. Cointelegraph’s US news editor Sam Bourgi and journalist Ana-Paula Pereira are on the ground covering the event with the latest insights, pictures, and video from panels and interviews.

The conference has garnered significant attention in the preceding weeks as prominent politicians joined the lineup of speakers set to feature at the event in Nashville. Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. are two major drawcards, along with other notable speakers like Michael Saylor, Cathie Wood, Senators Marsha Blackburn and Cynthia Lummis.

Lightspark chief strategy officer Christian Catalini and Xapo Bank director of public affairs, policy, and regulation Joey Garcia discussed the promise that Bitcoin and the Lightning Network will still significantly impact retail banking. Catalini emphasized Bitcoin’s ability to seamlessly allow its users to transfer value globally across “more than 200 countries, every day, 24/7 with deep liquidity.” He highlighted that Bitcoin has regulatory clarity and on and off-ramps in nearly every country.

BlackRock’s head of digital assets Michael Mitchnick discussed the global asset manager’s move into cryptocurrencies through Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded-fund products in 2024 in conversation with Bloomberg’s James Seyffart. “I would say that our client phase today, their interest overwhelmingly is in Bitcoin first. There’s definitely interest in Ethereum too but there’s very little interest today beyond those two.” Mitchnick noted that direct investors led demand when the ETF was introduced, while wealth advisory platforms like Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Merrill Lynch have not yet offered Bitcoin ETFs on a solicited basis, only at the client’s request.

Bitcoin developer and advocate Jimmy Song took a firm line during a panel featuring MMA fighter Ben Askren titled “Make Bitcoin in America Great Again.” Song criticized the presence of traditional finance institutions like BlackRock and the focus on banking, trading, and exchange-traded funds. “What makes Bitcoin great is liberty, freedom, self-sovereignty. Those are the things that this country was founded on,” Song said, adding that these values are contrary to the interests of the rent-seeking class and the administrative state.

As day one drew to a close, MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor joined the event livestream ahead of his keynote speech scheduled for 19:00 UST on July 26. Saylor, whose business intelligence firm owns over 200,000 BTC, said that 2024 will go down as “year one of mainstream institutional adoption of Bitcoin.” He continues to receive calls from public company CEOs and institutions interested in the Bitcoin-first investment approach, which he has helped pioneer.

Saylor also noted that the presence of two presidential candidates and other prominent US senators could be a positive boon for Bitcoin: “I think there’s a fair wind blowing for Bitcoin regardless. I really can’t see any administration in the future not embracing Bitcoin.” He added that the future question is not whether governments will be “pro-Bitcoin” but how aggressively they will move towards adopting it

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