Vice President JD Vance and two of the president’s children are among the MAGA characters set to speak at a Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas this week.
President Donald Trump will not speak at the conference, as he did last year amid his presidential campaigning, but Eric and Donald Trump Jr. will travel to the desert in his absence.
Also scheduled to speak is Ross Ulbricht, the recently pardoned digital drug market mastermind. Ulbricht, 41, was set to spend the remainder of his life in federal prison for founding “Silk Road,” where people could buy and sell drugs like heroin and meth, before Trump freed him in January to fulfill a promise to his Libertarian backers.
Justin Sun, 34, is another controversial figure set to take to the stage. He faces charges from the SEC for fraud and market manipulation, but the Trump-overhauled commission pressed pause on its probe in March “to allow the parties to explore a potential resolution.”
Sun has invested $20 million in the president’s memecoin and is known for outlandish public stunts, including him eating a $6.2 million banana.
Bryan Johnson, the 47-year-old tech executive who has spent hundreds of thousands on treatments to extend his life, will also speak at the conference. He has publicly supported Trump, whom he said paid him a visit last summer, and he is a fan of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy. He is not typically viewed as a MAGA figure, however.
White House crypto czar David Sacks is another from the Trump orbit who is listed to speak at the Venetian, which is hosting the conference between Tuesday and Thursday. Others in the MAGA-verse on the schedule include Vivek Ramaswamy, an ex-presidential candidate running for governor in Ohio; Byron Donalds, a Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate in Florida; and Chris LaCivita, a Trump adviser.
Organizers expect 30,000 attendees, 5,000 companies, and over 400 speakers at the event, which has become the largest cryptocurrency conference in the world.
The Trump family has gone all in on cryptocurrency since his election win. Not only have they publicly endorsed alternative currencies, but they have cashed in to the tune of $2.9 billion from crypto investments, CBS reported this month. Much of that is tied to a $Trump meme coin that critics, like billionaire Mark Cuban, have called a “scam” because it has no real-world utility.
The president’s media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, plans to invest $3 billion in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, sources told the Financial Times. That includes $2 billion in fresh equity and another $1 billion from a convertible bond.
A spokesperson for Trump’s company denied the report on Monday, telling the outlet: “Apparently the Financial Times has dumb writers listening to even dumber sources.”
Trump has vowed to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world,” which has helped spike the value of many cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, often considered the most stable coin, rose to a record high of $109,000 last week. This level of support is a far cry from 2021, when Trump dismissed Bitcoin as a “scam” in an interview.
“I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar,” Trump told Fox Business.
Trump’s tune on Bitcoin changed closer to the 2024 election, as his son, Donald Trump Jr., reportedly coached him on its potential. He then campaigned on rolling back cryptocurrency regulations and embraced the crypto community.
Bitcoin’s record-high figure last week came around the same time Trump hosted a private gala for top investors of his memecoin.
The dinner, hosted at a Trump property in Virginia, was closed to the press and public, leading to more calls from Democrats that the president’s crypto holdings are a conflict of interest.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the dinner by claiming Trump wined and dined investors on personal time, not in his capacity as president.
Either way, some who paid over $1 million to attend the dinner felt it left much to be desired. Reports said attendees were underwhelmed by the quality of service and the president’s apparent unwillingness to engage with most of his guests.
“The food sucked. Wasn’t given any drinks other than water or Trump’s wine,” an anonymous attendee told CNBC. “[Trump] didn’t talk to any of the 220 guests—maybe the top 25.”
