Greetings from Nashville!
Reflections on Being Part of the Largest Bitcoin Conference Ever
[Editor’s note: Please click on images to be taken to corresponding articles/tweets.]
As I sit down to write this, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude.
I just spent the last few days in Nashville, TN at Bitcoin 2024, the biggest Bitcoin conference ever.
When I headed down there, I had little idea that my duties at the event would revolve around the event’s live desk — the physical hub from which Bitcoin Magazine broadcasted the event to approximately 4.4 million viewers from Thursday through Saturday.
Before I share what this was like, it’s important to contextualize the experience with the fact that I’ve watched broadcasts from this live desk for years, never thinking in a million years I’d be one of the people behind it doing the broadcasting.
And I wasn’t told until the evening before the broadcast that I’d be on the desk at all, much less anchoring it for three hours on Friday — yet this is how things worked out.
So, please take a little ride with me as I walk you through what it was like.
Thursday, July 25: Industry Day
7:30 AM — Good Morning!
Bitcoin Magazine Content Editor Pete Rizzo: “Hey, Frank, you want to jump on the desk with us to kick things off?”
Me: “Sure.” (Playing it cool, as I wasn’t scheduled to be on the live desk until 1:00 PM, and I’d never done a live broadcast to tens of thousands of people in my life.)
Things went smoothly. I found my groove.
1:00 PM — Shout Out to Bitcoin Ekasi
Back on the desk, rocking my Bitcoin Ekasi T-shirt.
Bitcoin Ekasi is a township in South Africa that is one of the expanding number of circular Bitcoin economies in The Global South.
What’s a circular Bitcoin economy?
Good question.
Check out my interview with one of Bitcoin Ekasi’s community leaders to learn more.
I let the community know I’d be wearing their shirt, and my heart was full knowing that they were watching from the township.
Things went well in this afternoon session. Rizzo asked me to join him for a later session with Custodia Bank CEO Caitlin Long (a hero of mine) and James Seyffart, one of the two research analysts from Bloomberg who covered the launch of the Bitcoin ETFs.
3:00 PM — Caitlin Long at the Live Desk
Rizzo, James, Caitlin and I discussed how the regulatory bodies of the US government have made it difficult for Bitcoin companies to operate in the US, an issue with which Caitlin has a lot of personal experience.
After the panel, I spoke with Caitlin in greater detail about how she’s suing the US Federal Reserve (yes, The Fed — I told you she was the boss of bosses) for not granting her bank a federal banking charter for arbitrary reasons.
If she wins, she will do a tremendous amount of damage to The Fed’s reputation, and will likely sap it of some of its power. It seems she has a good shot of winning, too, as the industry is coming together behind her. Super exciting times!
After the day’s broadcast ended, Rizzo told me he was happy with my performance on the desk and asked if I could anchor it for him the following day for a few hours.
My heart raced, as I was not expecting such an ask, but I accepted without hesitation. I was up for the challenge, ready to take the baton.
You can watch the recorded livestream of Industry Day here. (Pardon the audio issues in the first portion of it.)
Friday, July 26: General Admission Day 1
8:00 AM — Let’s Do Another One
I kicked off the broadcast with Rizzo again.
Had to jump off at about 8:30 AM to host the lead off panel for the day.
I was super nervous that none of the expected 20,000 attendees would be there for the first panel, but we had a packed house. Super grateful.
I had some other interviews to conduct before returning to the desk at 2:00 PM, as I prepared to take over as anchor.
2:45 PM — Let’s go.
Showtime.
I took over for Rizzo in the middle of a panel filled with incredible guests — the magical Efrat Fenigson, the super pro Aubrey Strobel and the co-founder of PubKey, my favorite NYC Bitcoin Bar, Thomas Pacchia.
At this time, I believe we had about 200-300k people watching live.
If you’d like to know what it felt like to be in that seat, watch the last episode of The Bear Season 2 when Carmen, the head chef on the show, locks himself in the freezer during the opening night of the restaurant that took them months to renovate and open, and Richie, an employee with little experience running a premier kitchen has to take over calling out the orders to the kitchen staff as they come in.
There’s a moment where the sous chef, Sydney, looks at Richie and says “Drive,” right before Pearl Jam’s “Animal” kicks in and chaos ensues. That’s what this was like.
PURE ADRENALINE.
And at the same time, I just kept hearing Eckhart Tolle’s voice in my head: “Just stay present. Just stay present. Just stay present.”
So, present I stayed.
Legendary guests came and went from the desk as we commented on talks from the likes of US Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
5:00 PM — Donald Trump, Jr. Joins The Live Desk
Two hours in, I felt like I had things on lock.
That was until I heard the producer’s voice in my headphones telling that Donald Trump, Jr. was headed to the live desk.
Donald Trump, Jr., as in the son of the 45th President of the United States.
Quite a test was headed my way during my third hour of being a broadcast reporter.
And as much as I couldn’t believe it, within minutes of being told he was coming, he was sitting to my left.
As many of you know from this newsletter, I’m not a big fan of Trump, so all I could think was “Please don’t say something that I’m going to have to regret agreeing with on the air” during the entire 15 minutes we conversed.
I was actually pleasantly surprised that he knew his stuff when it came to Bitcoin and completely relieved that we didn’t dive into any controversial topics.
You can check out the conversation below:
I honestly don’t remember much of what happened after that. I know we closed the broadcast day out successfully, though, and I’d almost never felt such feelings of both relief and accomplishment.
You can watch the recorded version of the entire day’s live stream here:
Saturday, July 27 — General Admission Day 2
Given that the team was happy with my performance, I was asked to join the live desk again and anchor at various points throughout the day.
Again, I got the opportunity to speak with so many more people who’s work I respect to no end.
8:00 AM - Shout Outs to Some Real Deal Cats
We kicked off the day with a panel that featured Femi Longe, Global Bitcoin Ambassador for the Human Rights Foundation and former head of BTrust Builders.
I’m a huge fan of Femi’s work and rhetoric, so this was quite awesome.
During the first segment, I was able to give some shout outs to Maya Parbhoe, Presidential Candidate in Suriname; the team at Mi Primer Bitcoin; and Anna Chekhovich, the CFO for the late Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
Being able to mention these names and institutions to tens of thousands of people who may have not been familiar with them made me quite happy.
After that segment, I sat on a panel with Rafa Cordón and Carlos Toriello, two Guatemalan gentlemen who helped safeguard the results of the last Guatemalan Presidential election using Bitcoin.
I also got the opportunity to interview Alex Gladstein, the Chief Strategy Officer for the Human Rights Foundation.
And I sat down with Pierre Rochard, one of the heads of RIOT Platforms, a publicly-traded Bitcoin mining company, and his wife.
I jumped back in to anchor for a few last segments — including one with Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee — and all went well.
As the conference wound down, I felt transformed, like I’d really become a part of the Bitcoin Magazine team after a trial by fire.
You can watch the recorded version of the entire day’s live stream here:
Final Thoughts
Aside from the experience I just shared, I also had the chance to speak with politicians — both Republicans and Democrats — off the air.
I was most excited to speak with Ro Khanna, a pro-Bitcoin Democrat in Congress who can see that the Democrats need to get on board with Bitcoin.
We spoke while standing in the middle of the approximately 25,000 people who attended the event on Saturday, and I watched as he soaked in the enormity of what was happening.
This hopefully compelled him to raise awareness about the importance of Bitcoin amongst more Democrats, and to get them off of the Elizabeth Warren train and onto the Bitcoin train, a train that gives people more freedom and rights as we move into the future.
Moving forward, I’d like to see Bitcoin stop being a political wedge issue, especially as it becomes more normalized and more mainstream.
Please pardon the sloppiness of this edition of the newsletter.
I am COMPLETELY SHOT from this week’s events, but I wanted to write because this newsletter is where I started as a writer/reporter in the Bitcoin space.
About four years ago, I sat in front of this same keyboard — completely petrified and overwhelmed with imposter syndrome — and published my first Substack newsletter about Bitcoin.
Fast forward to this week, I got to help broadcast the largest Bitcoin conference ever to the world via Bitcoin Magazine.
I haven’t fully processed that yet, but I can say that I’m so immensely grateful to everyone who’s had faith in me along this journey — especially my mother and three younger sisters — who were all watching and cheering me on this week.
Over the years, they’ve been behind me and pushed me when I felt like I couldn’t take the big steps I’ve needed to.
I also have to thank all the Bitcoin enthusiasts from across the globe who sent me encouraging messages during the broadcasts this week.
I’m beyond grateful and so happy to be in this with all of you.
We’re living through an incredibly special time in human history, and it was my absolutely honor to be able to document a major milestone in it for you this week.
Much love.
Frank
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