Labubus and Unicorns: Florida Crypto Confab Unshaken by Bitcoin Volatility

Most attendees at a crypto conference in South Florida on Wednesday were eager to talk about the industry — between marketing tactics fueled by Labubu and the local party scene.-but Bitcoin’s recent fall to $100,000 was not top of mind for many.

At the Seminole Hardrock in Davie, several conferences were held Decrypt who did not check the charts as the price of Bitcoin was close to a five-month low. They look like the sun and commiserate with colleagues among the palm trees while they can.

The two-day event, called the Blockchain Futurist Conference, was made to see high-profile names such as Eric Trump, the son of the president of the United States, but also attracted industry veterans who are less known, including Betty Sharples, head of growth and partners at Truflation.

Sharples said she was there to promote Truflation’s ability to provide real-time inflation data, but she also appreciated the opportunity to gauge the temperature of industry trends such as prediction markets. She acknowledged that volatility has created “depressing” conferences in the past.

“If you go back two years, the price of Bitcoin definitely affected the temperature of each conference,” he said. “If you’ve been in this space for a while, you’ve already been through these emotions, and realistically, [Bitcoin is] still much higher than it was this time last year.”

Indeed, the price of Bitcoin was $69,000 a year ago, as Americans went to the polls, ultimately electing one of the industry’s most vocal supporters to the White House. However, some felt that it would be in poor taste to focus on crypto prices in a conference, no matter the time.

“That’s what poor people do,” said a network specialist and entertainer, who goes by Loudmouth. “You never sell anything worth anything, do you?”

Loudmouth, who said he arrived on a flight from Dubai on Tuesday, said he is more interested in the side events, and possible afterparties, than the conference itself. He hadn’t heard of anything.

“The conference gives everyone an excuse to get on a plane and fly to that place, but if you’re there, most of the time, you’re already in crypto, so you don’t want to just sit and listen,” he said.

However, some participants said they were there to network and promote their business. That included locals like Frank Grimes, the founder of a little-known project called Interlink, which focuses on uniting communities and projects.

“You’ve got to get those colds off,” he said, sipping a beer around 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time. “It makes things easier to get into a conversation.”

As with any crypto conference, some entrepreneurs wore colorful clothes to show their affiliation with certain digital assets. Russell Castagnaro and Kelly Page, who were there to promote an infrastructure project called Unicorn.eth, said the pink aligns with ethereum.

“We’re just here, and the atmosphere is pretty cool,” Castagnaro said. “I came to the [Blockchain Futurist’s] conference in Toronto before, but it was much colder.”

Historically, the Denver-based duo attended the annual Ethereum confab in Colorado. This week, Castagnaro said that he is particularly interested in connecting with other builders.

Once attendees walk through the door of the conference, they are greeted by a series of booths leading to a neon-lit stage, which usually serves as the heartbeat of a nightclub. Some companies have used bipedal robots to attract attention, while others have turned to oversized Labubus.

“He’s my baby angel,” Alyssa Michaud, account director at marketing consulting firm Coinbound. “I feel like he embodies the kind of virality that Web3 is all about.”

Michaud, a local, brought the two-foot doll to the conference to generate attention. But depending on how conference attendees engage with her, she said the company’s unofficial mascot could make a comeback at future events.