You Won’t Believe Who Stole the Show at Dubai’s Crypto Circus (Hint: Not the Camels) 🐪

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Well now, folks, if y’ever wondered what it looks like when the Wild West runs headlong into a pile of gold—and the gold’s digital, and the cowboys ain’t wearin’ hats but talking about “blockchains”—then pull up a chair and let me tell you about Day 2 of TOKEN2049 in Dubai. If enthusiasm was currency, they’d have minted a fresh batch by breakfast.

The crowd was so starstruck this Thursday you’d think Jesse James rode in, but no sir. The main attraction was Mr. Eric Trump, a gent partial to big towers and, so it turns out, even bigger promises about the future of money you can’t actually jingle in your pocket. They say he’s a web3 ambassador—which, near as I can tell, is like being mayor of a town that only exists if enough folks squint at the same spreadsheet.

Eric was jawin’ away alongside Zach Witkoff (a money wrangler from World Liberty Financial) and Justin Sun, who’s usually busy hawkin’ his virtual gold on account of being the TRON founder. They had themselves a fireside chat at 12:40 PM, which is Dubai time but could also be “too-early-for-strong-drinks” depending on your constitution.

But they weren’t the only ones slingin’ snake oil and dreams. Crypto’s own high rollers lined up: Raoul Pal, hollerin’ about how crypto’s still got more juice than a Florida orange; Ben Zhou, scratchin’ his head over artificial intelligence wallets—because apparently, even your wallet’s thinkin’ of replacing you; Eric Balchunas from Bloomberg breaking down Bitcoin ETFs, which are something like regular ETFs but more mysterious and liable to vanish after dessert.

Meanwhile, Paolo Ardoino (Tether CEO) took to the stage and declared Tether is “a once-in-a-century company.” Folks, I’ve heard more modest boasts from carnival barkers and riverboat captains.

For those with a skip in your step, here’s today’s highfalutin showbill:

Speaker Topic / Session Time & Stage
Eric Trump, Zach Witkoff, Justin Sun Fireside Chat: Future of finance, politics & crypto 12:40 PM – OKX Main Stage
Raoul Pal Undercapitalized Alpha: Crypto’s Big Opportunity 11:50 AM – OKX Main Stage
Ben Zhou (Bybit), Jansen Teng (Virtuals Protocol) AI Wallets & Autonomous Agents 4:00 PM – OKX Main Stage
Eric Balchunas Bitcoin & ETFs: Disruptive Power Couple 2:45 PM – KuCoin Stage
Paolo Ardoino (Tether) Tether: A Once-in-a-Century Company 3:00 PM – OKX Main Stage
Illia Polosukhin (NEAR) Building Blockchain for AI 11:45 AM – KuCoin Stage
Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon) Scaling for the next billion users 2:00 PM – OKX Main Stage
Kain Warwick (Infinex) Is DeFi Eating CeFi? 3:20 PM – OKX Main Stage
Muneeb Ali (Stacks) Bitcoin’s Next Chapter 4:00 PM – KuCoin Stage
Alex Svanevik (Nansen) When AI Wallets Outnumber Humans 4:00 PM – OKX Main Stage

Folks are still reeling from yesterday, when Changpeng Zhao, who folks call CZ but I call “that feller who made digital coins sound cooler than gold,” made his grand appearance. He blazed through talk of AI, mining for bits in Bhutan, and Chinese regulators who “want to regulate locally.” (Frankly, I’m shocked they don’t want to regulate on the moon, considering the rest of this crowd’s ambitions.)

Arthur Hayes looked in his crystal ball and saw bitcoin reaching a million dollars by 2028—which sure beats my old prediction of “probably not worth a hill of beans.” Meanwhile the folks at VanEck hollered, “Don’t buy Ethereum ETFs just for hype!” as if anyone in crypto’s here for anything but the spectacle.

Even Eric Balchunas poked fun: “Trump, Melania ETFs… Who’ll buy that?” Well, Eric, I reckon if you put a digital Trump steak on the blockchain, it’d sell faster than you can say “non-fungible.”

So saddle up, partner. If Day 2’s anything like Day 1, the only thing predictable is the unpredictability—and maybe spotting a camel in an Armani suit. 🤠🐫

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2025-05-01 09:27