The Vibes From the ‘Davos for Degens’ as Bitcoin and Ethereum Plummeted

If there’s one thing that WallStreetBets loves to do, it’s marvel at losses that other community members sustain when making outsized bets on stocks and crypto. But at a recent conference in Miami, not many degen traders were left standing by the conference’s last day.

At [REDACTED] Live, a conference devoted to the most reckless traders in finance, dealers stood ready at blackjack and roulette tables, waiting for conference-goers to try their luck. They didn’t have much to do, and all the while, Bitcoin and Ethereum plunged alongside precious metals, beginning a crypto market slide that would get much worse in the following days.

Despite a last-minute name change, the conference formerly known as WallStreetBets Live was still slated to host names like Jordan Belfort, the former stock broker who inspired a generation of so-called degens through his life’s portrayal in the “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

Ultimately, the character that became synonymous with charismatic persuasion and unapologetic greed in finance couldn’t attend. Martin Shkreli’s scheduled session also fell through, leaving attendees without the controversial investor known as the “Pharma Bro.”

In some ways, the conference’s lack of attendees showed how niche a fandom toward the bombastic Reddit community had grown—and crypto by extension. Some attendees recalled how hard it was to navigate the floors of the Miami Beach Convention Center in 2021, when a Bitcoin conference made it feel like the industry was tipping into the mainstream.

By many measures, digital assets have become legitimized in traditional finance since then. But following a series of booms and busts in the cryptosphere—from NFTs to meme coins—digital assets haven’t been embraced broadly by the general public yet.

An event organizer told Decrypt that around 1,300 attendees registered for [REDACTED] Live.

“Fundamental value”

A few speakers that attended the conference portrayed a shift from speculation to tokenization, allowing people to access real-world assets as digital tokens in a way that dovetails with the community serving as a digital breeding ground for meme stocks.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said onstage that meme coins lack “fundamental value.” And although the Seychelles-based exchange has listed several popular meme coins, including Pepe and President Donald Trump’s official token, she said that doesn’t mean she’s generally bullish on them.

Mezcal, the pseudonymous founder of token launchpad America.Fun, structured his presentation for the platform that lets users create and trade meme coins around the notion that Solana’s so-called trenches are dead. But by charging users $200 per meme coin created, he argued that his platform is less likely to support a mix of low-quality tokens on similar platforms that essentially amount to spam.

According to its documentation, America.Fun solely uses World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin, and trading fees collected by the platform may be used for buybacks of WLFI, the token offered by the DeFi project backed by President Donald Trump and his sons. 

Ogle, a pseudonymous advisor to World Liberty Financial, is an advisor to America.Fun as well, Mezcal told Decrypt. Mezcal added that it was his first time visiting the country.

The Davos of degens

Although enthusiasm toward assets that trade on vibes and bravado associated with WallStreetBets had dimmed, as far as the conference went, the same “us vs. them” mentally that defined the GameStop saga of 2021 still smoldered.

At least, that was from the perspective of WallStreetBets founder Jamie Rogozinski. Instead of waging war against Wall Street short sellers, he told Decrypt that his camp was now at odds with Reddit after it forced the event to change its name through a cease and desist letter.

With days to go, the conference went from “WallStreetBets Live” to “[REDACTED] Live.” Throughout the venue, all mentions of the name were patched over with new banners.

U.S. courts have ruled that Reddit owns the trademark to WallStreetBets, and in December, the Supreme Court declined to review a lawsuit brought by Rogozinski, per Bloomberg Law.

That didn’t prevent Rogozinski from rolling with the title for months. And he argued that Reddit is mostly concerned with how WallStreetBets has expanded beyond its platform.

“There is a resounding demand for this collective mindset to be able to unite,” he said. “I believe that the reason why Reddit is doing what they are doing specifically against me is because they are afraid that precisely that is what’s happening.”

A Reddit spokesperson told Decrypt that it “occasionally trademarks the names of certain communities to protect the creativity and interests of the users.”

Martin Masser, head of growth at TON Foundation, told Decrypt the outcome of Rogozinski’s legal tussle with Reddit sets a “dangerous precedent” because it creates the perception that people aren’t entitled the ownership of their data or the social media communities they create. 

He pondered whether YouTube could try to assert ownership over Mr. Beast’s media empire, for example. The sentiment was shared by AlphaTON Capital CEO and whistleblower Brittany Kaiser, who previously wrote amicus briefs to support Rogozinski’s case.

“A lot of the people here used to be considered rebels, deviants, or people doing something that was niche,” she told Decrypt, noting that she had just returned stateside from her 12th trip to Davos, Switzerland. “Now what we’re doing is not niche at all.”

FTX flashbacks

For South Florida locals like Alex Hochberger, founder and CEO of crypto startup Web3 Enabler, [REDACTED] Live felt like a mixed bag.

The bar was open at 9 a.m., as it should be at any Miami gathering, he told Decrypt. But there was something about an “anti-establishment conference [being] priced for people with corporate credit cards” that didn’t fully sit right with him.

Hochberger argued that general admission should’ve been free. Still, a couple dozen people had shown up early on the conference’s final day to watch former White House Communications Director and SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci kick things off.

Like Belfort and Shkreli, Scaramucci wasn’t able to make an appearance in-person. Still, he offered wisdom via a pre-recorded video, including that “you got to get up.”

As Scaramucci recalled his life’s biggest knockdowns—including losing his prominent White House gig after just 11 days—a brief clip of Sam Bankman-Fried shuffling in handcuffs played, depicting the former FTX CEO’s arrest in 2022. 

When FTX still had the naming rights to the arena where the Miami Heat play professional basketball, he was celebrated as someone that could turn the city into a major crypto hub. His conviction for orchestrating a massive, multibillion-dollar fraud would later stain the industry.

Scaramucci conceded that he let Bankman-Fried, who received a 25-year prison sentence for orchestrating a multi-billion fraud, acquire a 30% stake in Skybridge weeks before its collapse. But Scaramucci noted that setbacks can be temporary.

“It looked really bad for us,” he said. “But if you operate with integrity, even when you’re having a bad situation happen to you, you can survive—and there’s plenty of opportunities.”