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young man asked at one of

the conference happy hours.

“He was doing no one any

good. Ross did something to

protect all of those thousands

of customers.”

Aside

from

Lyn

Ulbricht’s appearance, the

most memorable part of the

conference

was

Charlie

Shrem’s virtual appearance.

He couldn’t travel to Texas,

of course, but the organizers

got him on Skype and

projected a live feed of

Charlie, from his basement

bedroom with his guitars

behind him. Charlie was

wearing a brown “BOUGHT

WITH BITCOINS” T-shirt that

he’d worn two months earlier

when he met Nic Cary for

drinks, before his arrest.

Charlie was in the midst

of trying to negotiate a

settlement

with

the

government to lessen the time

he’d

have

to

serve—

eventually, as a result of these

talks, Charlie would plead

guilty to one count of aiding

and abetting an unlicensed

money-transmitting business

and accept a one-year prison

sentence. In the meantime,

his lawyer had told him to

avoid making any public

statements that might hurt the

talks. But his loquaciousness

and desire for attention were

irrepressible. This kid, who

had once been called Statist

for his mainstream politics,

now gave a fiery talk that was

a play on a well-traveled

speech delivered by the

founder of the Pirate Party

several years earlier.

Friends, citizens,

Bitcoiners, there is

nothing new under the

sun.

My name is

Charlie Shrem, and I

speak to you from

under house arrest.

During the last

few weeks, we’ve

seen several examples

of legal outbursts.

We’ve seen the police

abusing the measures

available to them.

We’ve seen the

actions of the

financial services

industry. We’ve seen

high-profile

politicians mobilizing

in order to protect the

financial and banking

industry.

All of this is

scandalous without

parallel. That is why I

stand here today.

When it ended, some

twenty minutes later, there

was a smattering of applause

and

shouts.

Charlie

complained

that

his

connection was making it

hard for him to hear the

crowd’s response. But the

people who got up to ask him

questions told him he was a

hero.

“We all love you. You are

still a huge part of this

community,” said the shaggy-

bearded founder of a Bitcoin

charity. “What kind of beer

should we send to you?

Because you said you were

looking for six packs.”

“I love Blue Moon, but

anything exotic is good,”

Charlie said.

“All right, cool. Stay

strong Charlie!” the man

shouted with a raised fist.

ALMOST NONE OF the more

recent, moneyed arrivals at

Bitcoin showed up for the

conference at the race track.

But many of them did fly to

Austin just as the conference

was ending, to attend another

conference,

SXSW,

the

storied

public

gathering

where Silicon Valley mingled

with celebrities. On the first

day of SXSW, in a marquee

session with Google chairman

Eric

Schmidt,

Google’s

“director of ideas,” Jared

Cohen,

responded

to

a

question about Bitcoin with

his conclusion: “I think it’s

very obvious to all of us that

cryptocurrencies

are

inevitable.”

Fred Ehrsam, the former

Goldman Sachs trader who

had

joined

the

Bitcoin

company Coinbase a year

earlier, was given the honor

of his own SXSW session—

not a shared panel with other

entrepreneurs—and it was put

in one of the largest rooms in

the convention center, which

quickly filled up. In the

question-and-answer session

that followed Ehrsam’s talk,

Lyn Ulbricht was the first one

in line at the microphone. She

said something about using

Bitcoin for charity, but she

was clearly there to make a

plug for Ross’s legal defense

fund, which she told Ehrsam

was hosted on Coinbase.

Whereas Lyn had been a star

at the Bitcoin conference,

here she was an unhappy

reminder of a side of Bitcoin

that

Ehrsam

and

others

wanted to put behind them.

Fred responded politely and

fumbled to find something to

say about the value of Bitcoin

for

charitable

donations

broadly. But Fred was not shy

about his belief in the

transformative impact that

Bitcoin

would

ultimately

make as it became “the

prevalent transaction medium

on the internet.”

Fred’s biggest backer,

Marc

Andreessen,

was

increasingly vocal about his

belief that the Silk Roads of

the world were quickly giving

way to more Coinbases.

Andreessen frequently noted

that in the early days of the

Internet,

when

he

was

creating

the

first

web

browser, the new technology

had lacked the infrastructure

that would have made it

appealing to a mainstream

audience, and so it was

relegated to fringe groups that

were willing to experiment

with new technology. In time,

though, “the fringe characters

tend to get alienated and then

tend to move on to the next

fringe technology.”

“You don’t get the new

technology

from

the

mainstream,” he said. “My

prediction is actually that the

libertarians are going to turn

on Bitcoin. I think that’s

about two years out.”

SXSW underscored how

thoroughly Silicon Valley

was winning the battle to

shape and define the Bitcoin

technology. The gathering

also

served

as

a

stark

reminder of how Silicon

Valley had, more broadly,

emerged as the big winner

after the financial crisis. With

Wall Street in retreat, these

were the new billionaire

power brokers, flying around

the country in private jets. On

Saturday night Ehrsam was

invited to an exclusive party

hosted

by

Andreessen

Horowitz. At the party, which

was attended by celebrities

like Ashton Kutscher, Ehrsam

talked about Bitcoin with Ben

Horowitz and the rapper, Nas,

whom Horowitz had brought

on as an investor in Coinbase.

The big names like Horowitz

at SXSW reiterated what

world-changing

new

technologies, such as Bitcoin,

the tech industry was helping

to bring to the world. In an

onstage conversation between

Nas and Horowitz, Horowitz

called Bitcoin “the internet of

money,” with the potential to