Full Recap of the Bitcoin 2025 Las Vegas Conference: The Cycle Returns, Narratives Reconstructed—Bitcoin Is Becoming a “National Asset”
#Bitcoin2025 #Crypto#Saylor
From May 27 to 29, 2025, Las Vegas once again welcomed a global gathering of Bitcoin believers and institutional boundary-breakers. Over the course of three days, Bitcoin supporters from North America, Central America, Europe, the Middle East, and even Asia converged in Sin City to attend the “Bitcoin 2025 Conference.” This year’s event was not just a retrospective of Bitcoin’s fifteen-year journey — it was, more importantly, a “policy declaration” for the decade ahead.
Against the backdrop of “the decline of dollar hegemony,” “fiscal deficits as the new normal,” “the rise of sovereign miners,” and “a reversal in the regulatory game,” the central theme of the conference had long surpassed the boundaries of technology and finance. It delved into issues of national sovereignty, the reconstruction of global monetary systems, and geopolitical realignment. What follows is a faithful reconstruction of the three-day event and a breakdown of the deeper signals it released.
Core Highlights of the Conference
Saylor and Mallers: The Twin Pillars of a New Cycle
The conference kicked off with a keynote from Michael Saylor, founder of MicroStrategy and a long-time Bitcoin evangelist. His speech, titled The Path to Prosperity, was met with a standing ovation that lasted over three minutes. “Bitcoin is not just a digital asset,” he proclaimed, “but a mechanism for rebuilding spiritual order.”
These 21 “paths” laid out by Saylor could be seen as a condensed version of his personal philosophy — ranging from transparency, long-termism, discipline, decentralization, generosity, to trust minimization. One attendee even described it as “the New Testament of the crypto world.”
Next on stage was Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike, whose style sharply contrasted with Saylor’s — he was younger, angrier, and more direct. “The dollar is dead,” he declared. “Each of us should convert every cent we earn into Bitcoin.”
Mallers cited data to show that as Bitcoin’s volatility decreases, it has steadily evolved from a speculative asset into a reserve instrument for the “sovereign individual.” He mocked the Federal Reserve for “perpetually creating inflation” and warned that the U.S. debt structure is “bound to default sooner or later.”
At this year’s conference, Mallers completed a transformation — from a payments advocate to an ideological disruptor. He no longer represented just an entrepreneur, but became the voice of an angry, freedom-seeking new generation of libertarians.
Lyn Alden and the Energy Perspective: Bitcoin as a Way Out of the Debt Era
Lyn Alden’s remarks brought Bitcoin back into the context of macroeconomic structures. She presented extensive data showing that since the 2008 financial crisis, U.S. government debt has grown at a compound annual rate of 7%, while private sector debt has plateaued. This has led to a “credit surplus” in the U.S. Treasury market, and a growing scarcity of assets suitable for risk hedging.
“In an era of structural deficits and fiscal pain,” she argued, “Bitcoin’s resistance to censorship and its deflationary design make it the best form of insurance.”
She also discussed the energy dimension — particularly the emergence of “mining strategic partnerships” between traditional energy-producing countries (like Argentina, Russia, and Iran) and companies such as Tether and Blockstream. These collaborations are injecting real sovereign significance into Bitcoin’s energy infrastructure.
The Central American Story: Bitcoin as a National Strategic Asset
In El Salvador — one of the countries with the highest Bitcoin adoption — Max Keiser joined the president’s economic advisory team to explain how Bitcoin has reshaped the country’s fiscal structure. Over the past 18 months, the Salvadoran government, through its National Bitcoin Office (ONBTC), has been consistently acquiring Bitcoin and promoting the launch of “Bitcoin bonds.”
Max declared: “Our country no longer relies on the World Bank — we finance ourselves through Bitcoin.” He emphasized that Bitcoin has embedded itself in Salvadoran society as a threefold mechanism for education, savings, and national identity.
Another notable speaker was Panama City’s mayor, Mayer Mizrachi, who stated: “We’re experimenting with using Bitcoin to pay municipal salaries.” This “bottom-up” national strategy is spreading across Central America — not just adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, but attempting to anchor the entire fiscal system to Bitcoin.
In addition, Stacy Herbert revealed that El Salvador is incorporating Bitcoin into its primary school curriculum, teaching students aged seven and above about the nature of money, censorship, distributed ledgers, and savings logic. “This is the economic enlightenment of a new world,” she said.
Tether’s “Miner Empire Dream”: Is USDT a Proxy for the Old System, or the Starting Point of a New One?
The most controversial — and arguably most headline-grabbing — presentation came from Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino. For the first time, he systematically unveiled Tether’s “Treasury-Bitcoin-Energy” triangular strategy:
Tether currently holds over $120 billion in U.S. Treasury bills, earning over $5 billion annually in interest;
The company also holds over 100,000 BTC in reserves;
Tether has invested over $2 billion in global energy and mining infrastructure, including in Uruguay, Paraguay, Kazakhstan, and Oman.
Ardoino stated bluntly: “By the end of 2025, Tether will be the largest Bitcoin miner in the world.” This bold declaration sparked debate within both the traditional mining sector and the DeFi community. Some claim Tether is evolving from a stablecoin issuer into a sovereign energy conglomerate for a post-dollar world.
Critics, however, argue that Tether is playing both sides — profiting from the U.S. dollar system through interest arbitrage while also dominating upstream mining infrastructure in the Bitcoin ecosystem, raising concerns about potential systemic monopoly risks.
Hester Peirce: Regulation Should Make Room for “Good Actors”
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce once again positioned herself at the forefront of regulatory leniency. She stated that the greatest challenge in crypto regulation today is “ambiguity and delay,” which causes “good actors to exit while bad actors remain.” Peirce called for clear regulatory boundaries, emphasizing that:“When Bitcoin becomes a market consensus, it will inevitably be incorporated into the traditional financial system — but only if we preserve the individual’s right to freely transfer value.”
JD Vance: The Trump Administration Will Be Crypto’s Strongest Ally
The appearance of U.S. Vice President JD Vance was a major highlight of the conference. He urged crypto professionals to actively engage in political battles and push forward legislative progress. He warned:“If we don’t define clear rules now, this $3 trillion industry will flow overseas.”
Vance described Bitcoin as a fusion of ideology and technology, and revealed his personal Bitcoin holdings were between $250,000 and $500,000.
Eric Trump: The Bitcoin Revolution — America Must Win
Eric Trump, son of the former president, spoke even more bluntly:“America will win the Bitcoin revolution.”
He criticized how the weaponization of the financial system undermines personal freedom and noted that demand for Bitcoin far exceeds its supply. “Everyone is buying Bitcoin,” he said. “It is replacing the currency system that has been controlled for the past century.”
His speech carried a clear campaign undertone, emphasizing:“In the Bitcoin revolution, America must win.”
He also condemned the current financial system for enslaving individuals through account surveillance and credit scores, asserting that Bitcoin will “restore the essence of free markets and individual sovereignty.”
This may indicate that in a potential second Trump administration, Bitcoin will be formally integrated into U.S. national security and strategic competition frameworks.
The Absence of Web3 Builders and the Rise of Ordinals
One of the most striking phenomena at the Bitcoin 2025 Conference was the noticeable absence of Ethereum-based developers. Unlike similar summits in 2022 and 2023, this year’s conference was no longer dominated by DeFi protocol builders, DAO operators, or Layer 2 scaling advocates, but rather by Bitcoin maximalists, Ordinals creators, mining capitalists, and regulatory lobbyists.
While Bitcoin’s technical limitations — such as slower transaction speeds and lack of advanced smart contract capabilities — remain points of contention, the rise of the Ordinals protocol is gradually drawing developers back to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Through its Inscription mechanism, the Bitcoin network now supports quasi-smart contract functionalities for images, audio, and tokens. This has directly spawned new protocols such as Runes, BRC-20, and Pipe Protocol.
Over the course of the conference, nearly ten roundtables and live demos focused on Ordinals were held. Teams like Unisat, Tap Protocol, Ord.io, and ALEX drew considerable attention, and even many traditional BTC Maximalists publicly expressed — for the first time — openness to Ordinals’ long-term potential.
Notably, the conference also featured a dedicated hackathon and award ceremony for Ordinals developers. The grand prize went to the Pipe team, a Layer 2 expansion project within the Runes ecosystem. Their innovation lies in using Taproot to extend UTXO states, enabling multi-asset cross-block communication structures — essentially creating a quasi-state channel mechanism on Bitcoin.
However, the absence of major Ethereum and Solana ecosystem developers was glaring. Whether it was Uniswap, Lido, EigenLayer, Jupiter, or Tensor, or early DeFi pioneers like MakerDAO, Aave, and Curve, few had any presence at the event. This may indicate that:
The conference’s heavy political and sovereignty-driven tone made it less suitable for the tech-centric narratives favored by these developers.
There may be a growing ideological and narrative rift between Web3 builders and the Bitcoin camp.
A word of caution: if the Bitcoin ecosystem fails to develop interactive and composable development tools in the next two years, the current Ordinals hype could devolve into another round of “on-chain totem bubbles.” On the other hand, if breakthroughs are achieved, Bitcoin will evolve beyond a mere Store of Value and emerge as a new Layer 1 infrastructure and asset issuance platform.
This divergence marks the beginning of a clear split between the Bitcoin ecosystem and broader Web3 builders — a split that may define the contours of the crypto landscape for the next five years.
