Hola amigos,
Greetings from D.C.
I’ll be back in El Salvador VERY soon.
In the meantime, I have some cool updates from the past two weeks involving Bitcoin adoption here in the U.S. and D.C. specifically.
We also just had a new All Time High!
Let’s dive in.
“It’s so over” —> “we’re so back”
Topic list:
“BTC in DC” conference
Uptober —> BTC all time high
My Space with Max and Stacy
Bitcoin Month in El Salvador
Answering the call
“BTC in DC” conference
This was so surreal.
If you had told me a couple years ago that there would be a Bitcoin Conference in Washington, D.C. in 2025, I would’ve thought you’re crazy.
But last week it came true.
At the Kennedy Center of all places!
Multiple representatives from the U.S. Congress joined billion dollar capital allocators, Bitcoin entrepreneurs, and world-renowned educators…
Along with a few hundred Bitcoin “plebs” like myself at the most prestigious event center in the nation’s capital.
I often mention “degrees of separation” in these Substack posts. To be clear, I’m not particularly special. Those connections are true for many Bitcoiners.
I started buying Bitcoin just to hedge against fiat inflation in 2020, when the global economy was locked down and trillions of dollars were printed.
I got involved with the Bitcoin community just to make friends who share my righteous indignation about the evils of central banking… as well as my optimism for a sound money alternative, a future where the 99% is unshackled from the hidden tax (theft) of inflation.
I got on Twitter in early 2022 just to meet more people who understood that perspective.
I didn’t expect to meet billionaires, advisors to Presidents, and media superstars with millions of listeners.
But here I am now.
Bitcoin is more than just a monetary computer network. It’s also a human network.
The results from putting yourself out there can be unbelievable.
Michael Saylor — the billionaire next to me in the picture above — was founder and CEO of MicroStrategy before he got into Bitcoin a few months after I did.
Now his company, recently renamed Strategy, owns well over $70 billion worth of Bitcoin… by far the most of any treasury company in the world.
Meeting him wasn’t the only highlight from this event.
The speaker list was packed with other prominent Bitcoiners like Samson Mow, Adam Back, Jeff Booth, Lawrence Lepard, Max Keiser, Stacy Herbert, Mark Moss, Giacomo Zucco, and more.
It also included Senator Cynthia Lummis and several Congressional representatives who said some remarkably pro-freedom points.
One of many highlights from the event was Rep. Warren Davidson from Ohio making a great analogy about the Democrat activist judges’ persecution of crypto privacy software developers in the Tornado Cash and Samourai Wallet cases:
“It’s like blaming Microsoft for drug cartels using Excel”
Multiple elected Representatives in the U.S. Congress also brought up other dream policies like removing capital gains tax on Bitcoin and creating a U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
And sure…
They are politicians.
Even if these ones aren’t just pandering, the government has been shutdown for over a week now because Congress can’t get enough votes aligned to pass a spending bill.
Regardless… the fact that multiple legislators in the world’s most powerful country are pandering to Bitcoiners is absolutely INSANE progress from a year or two ago.
The increasingly favorable disposition from U.S. legislators and regulators, in addition to the global macroeconomic context, leads to my next section…
Uptober: BTC all time high
I mentioned this in my last post.
August and September have historically been the worst two months for Bitcoin’s dollar-denominated price performance.
October and November have historically been the two best months.
So far, that’s held true.
We just hit a new All Time High this week:
Over $126,000!
That’s about a $12k increase since I sang “Fly Me to the Moon” at the afterparty karaoke from Day 1 of last week’s conference.
Coincidence?
Probably. But a little Sinatra never hurts.
And of course, Bitcoin always breaks predictive modeling attempts, so let’s not get too carried away. Don’t take this trend as gospel and blame me if you gamble with leverage.
But it’s worth emphasizing that the underlying conditions for sound money to boom remain as true as ever.
Gold tends to be the leading indicator.
It’s at an All Time High, and when gold booms, BTC tends to follow a couple months later with a much greater increase.
I know Bitcoin has a big technical debate right now with Core v30 being released today. I have thoughts on that and the competing Knots protocol implementation, but it’s not worth a deep dive yet. I think the existential risk to Bitcoin from the OP_RETURN policy change is probably exaggerated.
Regardless of JPEG spam, Bitcoin remains the digital upgrade of gold. It might not hurt to have a small hedge with Sound Money 1.0, in case Digital Gold somehow fails from this or the eventual quantum threat, but I’m still all-in on the monetary upgrade personally.
Regardless of your investment balance between Bitcoin and gold, if you don’t have a major portfolio allocation in sound money, you’ve been missing out.
And I still believe the bull market has a long way to go.
My Space with Max and Stacy
Speaking of gold and investing…
Max Keiser had a successful career on Wall Street before becoming one of the world’s leading gold advocates in mainstream financial media.
Then in 2010, his wife Stacy Herbert became the first person in history to mention Bitcoin on a mainstream TV show, while its fiat denominated price was still $0.30 for an entire Bitcoin.
30 cents —> 126,000 dollars
Over 40 MILLION PERCENT increase
Bitcoin has come a long way.
So have Max and Stacy.
For the majority of the past 15 years, Max and Stacy have been two of the world’s highest profile Bitcoin advocates.
They’re also most likely billionaires in fiat terms. Over the years, Max periodically gave away 1,000 Bitcoins at once to prominent personalities like Russell Brand.
That’s now worth over $120 million.
I gave away $15 worth of Bitcoin at the Kennedy Center to teach three curious cafe employees there how to use it, but that’s a small portion of my stack. Presumably Max also has a lot more than 1,000 Bitcoins.
But his significance goes well beyond media impact and net worth.
Max and Stacy were the first two prominent Bitcoiners to move to El Salvador after President Bukele made it legal tender. They’ve been close advisors to him ever since.
And before I saw them at BTC in DC last week, El Salvador’s ambassador to the U.S. took Max and Stacy to a meeting at the White House.
Why am I bringing all of this up?
Because that meeting was Monday last week. The BTC in DC conference was Tuesday and Wednesday.
And on Saturday?
Stacy brought me up to cohost the second half of her Twitter Space with Max about what’s happening next month in El Salvador.
Speaking of which…
Bitcoin Month in El Salvador
Adopting Bitcoin 2023 was my first ever Bitcoin Conference. This year will be its fifth year running as El Salvador’s biggest annual Bitcoin event.
It consistently gets over 1000 attendees. You can use promo code “JETHOREAU” for a 10% discount to join us there this year on November 14-15.
Max and Stacy also launched the inaugural edition of Bitcoin Histórico for the two days directly before that, November 12-13.
It will take place in the Historic District of San Salvador, directly next to the National Palace. It’s like having a Bitcoin Conference in the Rose Garden of the White House.
Max and Stacy hosted a Space on X last Saturday to promote their new event… and yours truly featured in it.
I had DM’d Stacy beforehand to see if she would give a shoutout for our Economía Bitcoin event in Berlín’s circular economy the following weekend, November 22-23.
She went above and beyond, inviting me to cohost the second half of the Space.
Check out my main segment here:
I hung around on the Speaker stage for the entire second half, and also gave some shoutouts for multiple Bitcoin entrepreneurs in El Salvador near the end.
That part prompted some very nice compliments from these two legends:
“Wow, you are an amazing cohost”
-Stacy Herbert
“This guy is good!”
-Max Keiser
Not too shabby for my first time speaking on a Twitter Space in well over a year…
Answering the Call
When I left El Salvador after round 1 of Economía Bitcoin in April 2024, I had originally planned to renew my passport and return immediately.
Then the Biden Administration went after Roger Ver just a few days after my return for a Bitcoin-related tax case… then the developers of privacy tool Samourai Wallet were arrested shortly afterwards.
In my time living in El Salvador from August 2023 to April ‘24, I had spoken to hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter Spaces.
If you count all of the podcast episodes I had arranged for Bitcoiners, my reach was over a million people.
But all that time, my personal stack of Bitcoin had depleted… and with the regulatory threat, the smart move was to lay low for a while and focus on replenishing my savings.
The tide is turning now though.
Roger Ver just struck a deal with the IRS. Representatives in Congress are defending the Samourai Devs.
Bitcoin is booming.
My fiat mining job is going well. I just made another big sale this week.
And even though I was rattled by the assassination of Charlie Kirk, it also reminded me that living in fear is no way to live at all.
For the next two months, at least, I’m back in the game.
It’s been harder to organize Economía round 2 than it could have been if I’d been building an audience this whole time. I’ve largely been working on residual clout.
But this Space with Max and Stacy was a reminder of the potential that people saw in me.
I fly back to El Salvador early tomorrow morning because Stacy invited me to participate in a promo video for Bitcoin month.
Mike Peterson also had invited me on the Bitcoin Beach podcast two years ago. At the time, I wanted to wait until I was actually building something in El Salvador. I’ve cashed in that chip now. We’ll be recording a sit down interview in early November.
None of this is about personal gain.
I don’t really want to be a major media figure, and I actually lose money from doing all of this. Even if the event sells out, at best I’ll break even on my expenses.
I don’t care about the cost though.
I’m putting myself back out there because I want to do something nice for Berlín, to support circular economies, and to inspire more Bitcoin adoption around the world.
I’m hoping that the event goes well, that visitors learn from what’s worked in Berlín and bring it back to their own hometowns.
And I hope you’ll join us for Bitcoin Month, especially Economía this November 22-23.
I can’t guarantee that you’ll meet any billionaires, but Max and Stacy will be at these events. Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas is also attending Histórico.
I can’t guarantee that anyone will give you a gift of 1,000 Bitcoins either… but what I can guarantee is that you’ll get to meet a lot of really cool Bitcoiners in an extremely safe country surrounded by beautiful nature.
It’s going to be a fun experience. You can learn a lot and network at all three conferences, and combine it with a vacation at Bitcoin Beach between the first two events around San Salvador and then Economía up in Berlín.
Nov 12-23.
Bitcoin Month.
It’s gonna be a blast.
See you there!
P.S.
Even if you can’t make it to El Salvador this November… if you have my personal number or access to Twitter DMs, feel free to send me a good luck message.
We’re down to the final month here. Messages of support mean a lot at this stage.
The title of this post was inspired by the meme popularized by entrepreneurial types who know firsthand the feeling of all the ups and downs trying to build something:
Not to complain, but let’s just say it’s been relatable the past few months. Fortunately, things genuinely are trending toward “we’re so back” as we approach the moment of truth.
Since I’m also returning to the media landscape for the next month and a half, if you know anyone with a show who might feature me as a guest, feel free to help set that up.
Support in any form is much appreciated at this stage!
Oh my gosh. What a great post. It is filled with such passion and conviction. It was wonderful to hear those clips. You are so informed and so passionate about supporting people in ES. I really am sorry to miss it all. It sounds really stellar. And you’re right. There are so many interesting people who come. You are one of them. Safe journey!