Donald Trump’s two eldest sons came to America’s gambling capital to call for a new financial order — and the demise of the country’s biggest banks.
Eric and Donald Trump Jr took the Bitcoin conference by storm, promising a bonanza for digital asset holders, not least thanks to their father’s moves to lift the reins on their industry.
The brothers, stars in a firmament of crypto celebrities in Las Vegas this week, arrived to a stage named for Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous developer of bitcoin, after a string band’s rendition of techno anthem “Sandstorm”. They had Wall Street in their sights.
Eric Trump said to the massive, packed room at the Venetian hotel that “traditional finance was weaponised” against the crypto community and claimed that crypto transactions were “cheaper,” “faster”, “safer” and “more transparent.”
“I hate using the word hate, but honestly, I would love to see some of the big banks go extinct,” he said on Wednesday. “Honestly, they deserve it.”
It was an eye-popping comment matched only by the colour of the bitcoin faithful — orange — and the feverish mood of insurgent outsiders becoming rich.
The president’s sons have launched a series of crypto endeavours over the past year. World Liberty Financial created a stablecoin called USD1. Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, is raising $2.5bn to buy bitcoin. Eric Trump is taking public American Bitcoin, a crypto mining company. Their father’s memecoin — $TRUMP — raked in hundreds of millions of dollars.
“We’re very long crypto,” said Trump Jr. “It’s a huge part of everything that we do right now.”
The 2024 presidential election has changed the fortune of the crypto world once seen as a wild west of speculation and unregulated finance.
At last year’s Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Donald Trump promised to make the US the world’s “bitcoin superpower”. This year, his vice-president, crypto tsar, digital assets adviser and sons took over the event to pitch a new financial order.
Chris LaCivita, one of the managers of Trump’s 2024 campaign, said “so many friends” at the conference had been “instrumental in helping Donald Trump get elected president”. LaCivita joked that if Trump had lost, he and other supporters of the president would have needed to find refuge outside the country.
“I can say this: that had we not been successful, including myself, we would’ve been looking at a country with a non-extradition treaty,” said LaCivita.
Crypto enthusiasts thought the Biden administration was at “war” with their sector. Trump, a memecoin vendor himself, has been much kinder.
His administration has ended many of the Biden-era investigations into crypto companies, pushed legislation to pave the way for widespread adoption of digital assets — even in people’s pensions — and wants the US government to directly acquire bitcoin.
Senior Trump officials pledged both a strong US dollar while pitching an alternative to the world’s reserve currency. JD Vance, Trump’s Silicon Valley-friendly vice-president, told the Las Vegas crowd that stablecoins were “a force multiplier of our economic might” rather than a threat.
“It’s only going to help the American dollar,” said Vance.
Bitcoin was created 16 years ago as a new, alternative, “decentralised” digital currency, born out of distrust for established currencies backed by governments and central banks. It quickly became an asset favoured by speculators, former gold bugs and criminals.
The cryptocurrency has been prone to sharp swings in value. But it has now come of age — endorsed not only by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, but also the US president himself.
Last week, bitcoin reached a record high of more than $111,000. Eric and Donald Trump Jr said in Las Vegas that bitcoin would reach more than $170,000 within a year.
The bitcoin enthusiasts in Vegas extolled its mission as a high-minded pursuit, while revelling in base tendencies. Vance said bitcoin would be “involved in the strategic future of our country” as the US competed with China. But he was not complimenting the crowd to “juice my own memecoins”, he joked.
Some crypto executives accused the president — and his wife, Melania — of doing just that when they launched their own memecoins earlier this year.
Near Nakamoto stage, the billionaire Winklevoss twins — co-founders of crypto platform Gemini — sped across the Venetian hotel’s cushioned carpets. A man in an orange bitcoin hat asked the bartender at Grand Lux Cafe about the credit card he left behind the previous night. Members of Congress wandered the pathways surrounding the indoor, faux-Venetian canal.
Inside the conference entrance Gemini pitched “the bitcoin credit card” and offered a sweepstakes with two orange Tesla cybertrucks as the prize.
There was an auction of Ross Ulbricht’s items from prison — ID cards, his paintings, sweatsuits. Trump pardoned the darknet Silk Road creator, who was sentenced to life in prison, in one of the first official acts of his second term. A copy of the first issue of Bitcoin magazine was on sale for $10,000.
A $21,000 conference ticket would make you a “whale” — a reference to the big investors that some people believe influence the price of digital assets — for the week. Privileges included skipping queues, finer food and entry to velvet rope parties for the chance to meet crypto billionaires such as Justin Sun and his colossal security detail.
In a private, whales-only area called The Deep, crypto executives put questions to government officials such as Bo Hines, Trump’s 29-year-old crypto adviser, entered a sweepstake to win Louis Vuitton luggage, played pool and signed up to fly to outer space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard.
Advertisements for Geoship dome houses and “Rare”, a platinum- and diamond-encrusted sculpture in the shape of a steak, were on the high-top tables.
On stage, a series of speakers from “don’t die” investor Bryan Johnson to embattled New York mayor Eric Adams pitched the bitcoin acolytes.
White House crypto tsar David Sacks urged Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and commerce secretary Howard Lutnick to find budget-neutral ways for the US government to acquire bitcoin.
Sacks asked the audience, “Can you guys get their attention?”
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