Trump, sidechains, layer 2s, and Ordinals are the most talked about topics.
More than 20,000 bitcoiners have flocked to Nashville, Tennessee, for the largest Bitcoin conference in the world–Bitcoin2024, and as politicians and dapp developers roam the halls, it’s become clear the community of the largest cryptocurrency is undergoing a major shift.
The price notched a 4% jump to $67,300 in the past 24 hours, in anticipation of presidential nominee Donald Trump who will be speaking at the conference on Saturday July 27, and has been the unequivocal talk of the town.
“It’s pretty incredible that Trump is going to be here,” said one attendee named Ryan, a Bitcoin miner.
Though he’s not at the conference to see him, he noted that he appreciates that Trump is shining a positive light on the industry, “because it might help me keep my company alive rather than the current administration that you just never knew what would happen.”
Alongside Trump, independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. and former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will also be speaking. Neither garner the attention of former president Trump, however, but they do point to a broader trend.
Three presidential candidates espousing pro-crypto campaign slogans at the world’s largest Bitcoin conference shows crypto has become large enough to force candidates to take a stand on the industry.
“Politicians flooding the conference shows me that Bitcoin cannot go unnoticed anymore,” said Jackson, a bitcoiner who has been in the industry since 2017. He doesn’t favor any politician over others, but thinks that their “arrival” is a sign that Bitcoin is now ready for the big leagues.
Jackson told The Defiant that having Trump attending is “good for Bitcoin” even though he doesn’t necessarily agree with his politics. “The free publicity that he’s giving us, even if he doesn’t follow through, is much appreciated.”
Bitcoin Season 2
There are two other narratives dominating the hallway conversations at Bitcoin2024: the expanding ecosystem through layer 2s and sidechains, and Ordinals.
Layer 2s, sidechains, statechains, and experimenting with zero-knowledge technology is now proliferating on Bitcoin, and it is not only drawing crowds but also events. A slew of events are hosted across the city that are organized by projects building applications on Bitcoin, something that wasn’t seen in years prior.
Bitcoin Season 2 refers to the dwindling “Bitcoin maxi” mindset that believed in the ossification of the network and the need to focus on the store of value aspect of Bitcoin rather than building out applications.
Many of the attendees The Defiant spoke to talked about how the technical aspects are looking increasingly interesting, and the “ability to finally use it for something more than HODLing,” said one bitcoiner.
Another agreed, pointing out the plethora of side events organized by companies like Magic Eden, an Ordinals marketplace, or Botanix Labs, a firm building an EVM-compatible ecosystem with Bitcoin as its base layer.
Eye on Ordinals
That’s another trend that is rocking at Bitcoin2024: Ordinals.
Since the appearance of the protocol created by Casey Rodarmor in February 2023, which allows for arbitrary non-financial data to be inscribed on Bitcoin, Ordinals have also proven to be a massive expansion of the ecosystem–and the conversation.
Casey Rodarmor roams the hallways of the Conference and draws stares from nearly every person he passes. “That’s Casey” said one person, with another approaching him to shake his hand. The Ordinals creator singlehandedly upended what was previously unthought of in Bitcoin: NFTs that live forever on the blockchain.
And his protocol–which spawned the BRC-20 token standard along with Runes–opened up a whole new sector within the Bitcoin community that was felt throughout Bitcoin2024. An array of events organized by Taproot Wizards have drawn large crowds, with Quantum Cats adorning the walls.
According to Bob Bodily, CEO of Bioniq, an Ordinals marketplace, only two weeks after Casey dropped the Ordinals protocol, he saw the writing on the walls. “I saw real money coming into the space from Ethereum collectors and traders and immediately realized this was happening,” he said.
At the Ordinals Pizza party on Wednesday in Nashville, a man draped in a wizard costume told The Defiant “We’re making Bitcoin magical again and it’s only going to get crazier.”
Bitcoin2024 is a refreshing look into how the politics, and groupthink in the ecosystem is shifting. From its libertarian roots and ossifying maximalists to builders, developers, and pro-crypto presidential candidates, Bitcoin’s transformation is quite the sight to see.
