As Bitcoin Sinks, Crypto Bros Party Hard on a Blockchain Cruise

When 600 cryptocurrency enthusiasts set sail from Singapore
on Monday night for their second annual Blockchain Cruise,
the price of Bitcoin was hovering comfortably above $13,500.
By the time their 1,020-foot-long ship pulled into Thailand on
Wednesday, for an afternoon of bottomless drinks and crypto-
focused talks on a sun-soaked private beach, Bitcoin had
cratered to $10,000.
The Coinsbank Blockchain Cruise Asia ship sits off Paradise Beach in
Phuket.
The group of mostly young men, many of whom became
wildly rich -- at least on paper -- as Bitcoin and other digital
tokens skyrocketed last year, had in all likelihood just lost
millions.
But if anyone was fazed, they didn’t show it. The party rolled
on as the sangria and Red Bull flowed, Bitcoin-themed rap
music blared and drones filmed it all from above.

“Nothing goes up in a straight line,” explained Ronnie Moas,
the founder of Miami Beach-based Standpoint Research, who
was one of the event’s speakers on Wednesday. In a best-case
scenario, he said, Bitcoin could jump to $300,000 in as little as
seven years.
For skeptics of the crypto craze, it’s hard not to see all this as
another sign of runaway exuberance -- a repeat of the
boosterish Las Vegas securitization conference, immortalized
in The Big Short, that preceded the subprime mortgage
meltdown of 2007. But the steadfast optimism on display at this
week’s Blockchain Cruise also carries a warning for anyone
betting on a cryptocurrency crash: It’s going to take more than
a 50 percent drop in Bitcoin from its Dec. 18 high to drive out
the diehards.
“This is something that you either believe in or not,” said Moas,
who has become a crypto-celebrity after issuing stratospheric
price forecasts for Bitcoin.
The cruise’s eclectic list of speakers included Jose Gomez, a
former aide to the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez;
Kaspar Korjus, the head of Estonia’s e-residency program
(which may issue its own cryptocurrency); and Jorg Molt, an
early digital currency backer whose claim to hold 250,000
Bitcoins (worth $2.8 billion at the current price) couldn’t be
verified.
John McAfee is interviewed by RT television network.
But perhaps the biggest draw was John McAfee, the anti-virus
software pioneer with a checkered past. In 2012, while living
in Belize, McAfee had run-ins with local police for alleged
unlicensed drug manufacturing and weapons possession, but
was released without charge. At one point, Belize police started
a search for him as a person of interest in connection with the
murder of his neighbor. McAfee said he was innocent and that
he fled Belize because of persecution by corrupt officials.
He now helps run MGT Capital Investments Inc., a small-cap
tech company with a Bitcoin mining business. He has become a
cryptocurrency evangelist on Twitter, touting the technology
and various tokens to his more than 700,000 followers.
Coinsbank, the digital currency exchange and wallet operator
that organized the cruise, made him a headline speaker.
On Wednesday, McAfee blamed the recent market slump on
unfounded fear of government intervention. He urged
cryptocurrency holders -- one of whom sported a “Buy The
Dip” t-shirt -- to stick with their bets.

“You cannot force a ban on a distributed system,” McAfee said
in an interview after his speech. “It’s like how do you ban
smoking weed? You can’t ban it. People will come back.”
Participants listen to a speaker.
Not every conversation on the Blockchain Cruise revolved
around cryptocurrencies. Attendees, unsurprisingly, had plenty
to say about blockchain -- the distributed ledger technology
that underpins Bitcoin -- and its potential to improve industries
from finance to health care.
Charity was also a topic raised by speakers including Moas,
who urged the audience to donate some of their newfound
wealth and help reduce global inequality.
Many attendees have far more than they need.
Rowan Hill, a former coal miner in Australia, said he retired by
26 after getting in on the crypto boom early. After the cruise,
he’s heading to Japan for a four-week snowboarding trip.
Participants relax at Paradise Beach.
“A lot of people can’t stand the price swings” in digital
currencies, Hill said, donning a fedora and sunglasses as he
lounged on the beach. “The average person just sells, and they
lose out.”
Joe Stone, an Australian who invests in digital assets, said
market declines are easier to bear in the company of fellow
enthusiasts. For many on the cruise, the next stop is another
cryptocurrency conference in Bangkok.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” said Stone, after a late night
of mingling at the ship’s cigar bar over whiskeys. “Otherwise
I’d just be at my computer.”

Source- Bloomberg