Bitcoin2023 Suffers from Low Turnout Amidst High Ticket Prices and Crypto Downturn
"The world's biggest Bitcoin conference" seems to have shrunk – attendance-wise, that is.
According to the FAQ and the official social media sites, Bitcoin 2023 is the biggest Bitcoin conference in the whole world, but despite the variety of speakers, panels, and events announced, there are reports that not many people have come - at least not as many as one may expect.
The conference is held May 18-20 in Florida, USA, hosting a number of speakers from different fields, including MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor, former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, financial analyst Lyn Alden, Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark, author Michael Lewis, US Senator Cynthia Lummis, USA Presidential Candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert F. Kennedy JR, Credit Suisse Managing Director Zoltan Pozsar, Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation Alex Gladstein, Blockstream CEO Adam Back, Indonesian governor Ridwan Kamil, and many more.
But it's the number of empty chairs that caught some attendees' attention.
Will Laurent, a contract worker for DFINITY, told Decrypt that yesterday felt like a ghost town compared to last year.
"It's not wall-to-wall packed like it normally is," Andre Hicks, an attendee for the past two years, was quoted as saying. "I've never ever been to one where it was just like a dead bear market like it is now."
Last year, some 35,000 people attended, per the event organizers, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. It lasted for four days and featured more than 450 speakers.
This year, only 15,000 attendees are reportedly expected to come.
Reasons for this drop in attendance unsurprisingly seem to include the vastly different crypto ecosystem compared to last year, given that the industry has been badly shaken by a prolonged crypto
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