Bitcoin 2026 opens to empty seats, protests, awkward moments

Bitcoin (BTC) was worth $110,000 at last year’s big Las Vegas conference but by the time Bitcoin 2026 kicked off this week, it had fallen to less than $79,000.

Unfortunately, that was just the start of the disappointment.

The conference opened yesterday at The Venetian in Las Vegas with two senior US officials addressing a mostly empty main stage.

During the event, security also escorted the wife of imprisoned Samourai developer Keonne Rodriguez from one of the areas, and a member of Congress claimed to have started mining BTC in 2006, which isn’t possible.

The day’s most-hyped event, a main stage panel entitled “Code is Free Speech,” billed FBI Director Kash Patel and Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche as speakers.

However, neither physically attended the event.

For a session pitched as a federal olive branch to the crypto industry, the nearly empty event landed as little more than an awkward gesture.

Attendees also noticed the stock of the conference organizer’s public company, Nakamoto, 99% below its price during last year’s conference.

And all this before the event’s second day had even started.

Security incident with a Samourai fan favorite

Broadly supported by the Bitcoin community, Lauren Rodriguez is the wife of Keonne Rodriguez. Her husband is serving a five-year prison sentence for pleading guilty of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money‑transmitting business involving Samourai Wallet. 

According to her characterization of events, security escorted her out of the conference “for holding #FreeSamourai signs,” tagging conference founder David Bailey. 

Support for Samourai is widespread in the Bitcoin and wider crypto communities. Indeed, the conference organizer had scheduled Rodriguez to appear that same afternoon on a main stage panel entitled “The Wives & Mothers Carrying the Fight Against Injustice.”

Bailey’s staff later remedied the situation, with Lauren thanking organizers for “resolving the issue with security.” However, the initial media damage was immediate, with 140,000 views on X of her initial complaint.

‘No longer prosecute Bitcoin developers’

Back at the main stage, within minutes of a cagey and heavily qualified statement by Acting US Attorney General Blanche, Pete Rizzo breathlessly broadcasted to his followers that the “US Attorney General just said they will no longer prosecute #bitcoin developers… Samourai devs about to be free.”

That was an incredible characterization. In fact, Blanche had said nothing about freeing Samourai developers, and merely promised a heavily qualified aspiration, vaguely hoping that his department would not generally intend to prosecute software developers if “you are not helping and knowing the third party is using what you developed to commit crimes.”

Excluded from the celebratory claims on social media about Blanche’s non-existent promise to stop prosecuting Bitcoin developers, Blanche continued, “Obviously, facts matter, because if you’re laundering money or violating sanctions, the mere fact that you happen to be a coder doesn’t excuse you from criminal liability.

“So there’s a distinction there, and that’s why the facts of a particular case are very important.”

Read more: Samourai developers plead guilty

Bitcoin 2026 speaker “mining bitcoin 20 years ago”

On the same main stage, Iowa Republican Congressman Zach Nunn claimed to the audience that he “started mining BTC 20 years ago.”

Unfortunately for Nunn, Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper in October 2008. Twenty years ago is 2006.

Lastly, the disappointing stock price of Nakamoto (NAKA), the BTC treasury stock founded by conference organizer Bailey, loomed heavily over the event.

During last year’s conference, NAKA traded over $29 per share. It closed for trading yesterday below $0.20.

Read more: Bitcoin treasury Nakamoto down 98% — still pays David Bailey lavishly

A venue far from capacity, main stage speakers dialing it in, an ejected Samourai protester, and a congressman magically mining BTC years before the network launched. 

All of it fit inside just the first day of Bitcoin 2026. Two more days to go.

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