Pub Key Bar 85 Washington Place New York, New York 10011 https://pubkey.bar

I read an article a week or so ago in Forbes about a bar called Pub Key in New York's Greenwich Village. It was described as

If it works out, the plan is to expand the Pub Key concept to other cities worldwide. I imagined a sort of bitcoin Hard Rock Cafe thing.

I feel foolish not knowing about this place sooner. I live about an hour and a half car ride from Greenwich Village. I am a solitary shut in bitcoiner. The only other person I know who owns bitcoin is my nephew, and he's a bit of a shitcoiner. I'm more or less on my own. I fantasize about taking a trip to Bitcoin Park in Nashville or even a more ambitious journey to check out Austin.

I was surprised to read about this bar. New York City has really gone down hill in so many respects since the covid lock downs. It had become a bitcoin desert even before the pandemic. On a personal note, I was deeply offended and angry that I was not permitted to eat in restaurants or attend a Broadway play in the city since I had chosen not to get a vaccine. For more than twenty years my wife and I had socialized with friends and family in Manhattan. Every year for our anniversary we would spend a weekend at a nice hotel, eat at some great restaurants, and attend a few Broadway productions. I was born in Brooklyn. I had supported the New York economy my entire life. I felt betrayed. I vowed to never go back. I was already upset about the BitLicense, which prevented me from buying KYC bitcoin from many exchanges. This was the last straw.

I gradually restricted my boycott to Manhattan. One night I unwittingly ate at a NYC restaurant, not realizing we had crossed the Long Island/Queens border. No one cared whether we were vaccinated or not in Queens.

I stayed away from the island of Manhattan until the other day. The morning of August 2 I checked out the Pub Key web site, and discovered that a last minute meetup had been scheduled for that night because Marty Bent was in town. The topic was the release of Galaxy Digital’s Bitcoin Mining Mid-Year Report. This would be the perfect opportunity to attend my first bitcoin event in person. I was reluctant to break my boycott, but I was so happy that bitcoin had its own bar in Greenwich Village.

I have ties to that area. My great grandfather, an Italian immigrant, opened a chicken market there with his brothers in the 1920’s. That market kept the family fed through the depression, and his son still owned it when I was a kid.

The Greenwich Village of the 1960’s was legendary as the breeding ground for the musical, artistic, cultural and political upheaval of the time. Maybe the Village will be where bitcoin begins the city’s rebirth? I was getting carried away. It is just a bar.

I figured I would get there early, have a look around, and eat dinner before the event. As I drove through the midtown tunnel and made my way south, I was surprised that the streets didn’t look as bad as I had imagined. I did see more homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks, but not as many as I expected. I remember New York in the 1970s. I was not getting that same feel of grimy decay.

The owners of Pub Key did a lot of things right, but choosing the location was inspired. It is right off Washington Square Park, and for all intents and purposes smack dab in the middle of the NYU campus. Many tech startups are located in this area. Galaxy Digital’s offices are within walking distance.

Pub Key is owned by Thomas Pacchia, Greg Minasian, Marshall Mintz, Greg Proechel, Peter Richardson, and Andrew Newman, but Pacchia is the face of the bar. It was his idea, and he is involved with every aspect of the operation. His concept was brilliant, and his execution was close to perfect, down to the smallest detail.

From the street Pub Key captures the NYC dive bar look perfectly. It helps that the space used to be a bar called Formerly Crow’s, a genuine dive bar before it was killed by the covid lockdown. There is no major signage except for a sandwich board placed on the sidewalk. It is below street level, a New York tradition. The door looks original, old and worn. As you walk in, the long bar is to the right. It was about 4:30 pm., so there weren’t many customers besides me. Tom introduced himself and I ordered a beer from the bartender.

You can see from the photo that Peter McCormack’s Real Bedford soccer club’s banner is prominently displayed behind the bar. Peter did a podcast episode with Tom a few months ago. There are Real Bedford banners everywhere.

Contrary to news articles I had seen before my visit, Pub Key does accept bitcoin and LN payments. They have a Point Of Sale terminal hooked up to a Zeus wallet. The payment system was set up by Drew Armstrong, President and COO of Cathedra, a bitcoin mining company. He also plays a role in the management of Pub Key. Unfortunately I did not have enough sats in my Phoenix wallet, so I paid with cash. I wasn’t alone. I saw no one pay with bitcoin during my visit. I learned that Drew recently estimated that only one percent of sales are currently made in bitcoin. That’s disappointing. Pacchia attributes the infrequent bitcoin transactions to the IRS rules that make each tab paid a taxable transaction. On the rare occasion when someone does pay with the Zeus wallet, it’s a good learning experience for the curious no coiners sitting at the bar wondering what’s going on.

I took a walk around the place. There were posters, stickers, and memorabilia everywhere. The aesthetic was bitcoin shabby, if there is such a thing.

A guy named Alex introduced himself. He gave me the lay of the land. He works nearby and spends a lot of time in the bar. I discovered that he was Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy and host of the Galaxy Brains podcast. He was about to record an episode at the end of the bar. He told me that Marty Bent had just completed an episode of his TFTC podcast upstairs. I didn’t even know there was an upstairs. I learned that there is a recording studio on the second floor and sleeping accomodations for out of town bitcoiner guests. I was beginning to realize the full extent of this operation. I was impressed. Alex also told me that the “Bitcoin Sign Guy” was upstairs. I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him anyway.

I ordered dinner. Alex gave me the scoop on the food. The menu was designed to look like crappy bar fare, but it’s not. I ordered a chicken sandwich, which was delicious. Pub Key hired Head Chef Greg Proechel, who was trained at the acclaimed Eleven Madison Park restaurant, to produce high quality bar food. Let me tell you, they succeeded. The smash burger and chopped cheese have already earned a city-wide reputation. On the other hand, the Orange Pill Pleb cocktail is apparently horrible, though I didn’t try it myself. It is a high life with a shot of campari and sweet vermouth.

The bar area gradually began to fill up. There was something familiar about the crowd. I lived in Manhattan for a few years in the mid to late 1980s. The movie Wall Street documented that time. Rich college graduates from all over the country flocked to New York to “get into finance” and become the next Gordon Gecko. Here I was in 2023 surrounded by those same arrogant, pampered young guys wearing turned around baseball caps and self consciously casual outfits. I heard no New York accents. These were private school and Ivy League kids. People known as Yuppies, Preppies, or Tom Wolfe ’s “Masters Of The Universe” back then. My friends and I called them douchebags.

I started to eavesdrop on a few conversations. Two smug 20 something dudes approached the bar to order a drink. One looked at the other and said “What is this, a crypto bar?” His friend leaned over and in a lower voice said “it’s not a crypto bar, it’s a bitcoin bar.” The other guy looked puzzled, not appreciating the distinction. The guy sitting next to me struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to him, explaining that he’s working for a startup looking to provide trust solutions for companies wanting to hold bitcoin. They were in the “outreach phase.” These two were focused on the halving and BlackRock’s spot ETF application, expecting the price to skyrocket in the next 6 months.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression. There were plenty of guys at the bar who look the way I think a bitcoiner should look. You know- 30 something developers, black t-shirt, beard, longish hair, kind of disheveled looking. Maybe carrying around a few extra pounds and drinking a little too much? Those guys I naturally relate to. We have a lot in common but for the fact that I can’t code. I know I’m stereotyping. I suspect the finance crowd was mainly Mike Novogratz’s employees who were there for the presentation, and others maybe looking to get a job with Galaxy. I heard a few “networking” type conversations.

The male to female ratio in the bar was around 40 to 1. Where were the women? I do remember plenty of women being around in the 1980s. Maybe it was too early in the evening. I spoke to a few patrons closer to my age. We chatted about New York and how it’s changed. When I asked if they were there for the bitcoin meetup, they were puzzled. They didn’t know they were in a bitcoin bar. That’s an amazing thing about Pub Key. It’s a really good bar even if you have no interest in bitcoin.

The bitcoiners here don’t seem to embrace hardcore maximalism. I learned that there is a shitcoin called HAM, which is a reward token for hamster races. Don’t ask me. I guess they show these hamster races on a TV, and patrons make money off this shitcoin. I’m hazy on the details. Pacchia’s motivation in opening the place was to foster dialogue and build community. He says that you’re less likely to argue with someone you’re drinking with in person than online. All I know is that after a few beers I didn’t criticize the hamster races.

Pub Key has a Wall Street sensibility. This place wasn’t conceived and built by iconoclastic cypherpunks. Pacchia first bought bitcoin in 2013, but at that point he was a derivatives lawyer at a white shoe New York law firm. He is a very smart guy with degrees from NYU business school and Maastricht University in Holland. He helped start up Fidelity’s crypto incubator. He has started and run his own crypto hedge fund. Everyone involved in the operation seems to be an alumnus of Fidelity or Galaxy Digital. This is just an observation, not a criticism or condemnation. This is New York, after all.

I eventually headed into the back conference room to get a seat for the presentation. There was a large wall mounted monitor and video cameras were set up in the back. This space is used for live streaming and looks to be well equipped. You get the sense that no expense was spared.

The room filled up and the meetup started. It was very well organized and professional. The panel participants were Simrit Dhinsa from Galaxy, Marty Bent, Thomas Pacchia and Drew Armstrong. As I said earlier, the topic was the recently released Galaxy Digital Bitcoin Mining Mid-Year Report. The discussion was high signal and at times a little over my head. I have not spent much time reading about the financial side of big mining operations. Still, I learned a lot. I knew how fortunate I was to have Marty Bent participating at my first bitcoin meetup. When it got really technical, I was distracted by the loud music and crowd noise coming from the bar area. I realized that all the bitcoiners were with me in the back. The people in the front were here for the great food and drinks. This was the real genius of the Pub Key concept. Later in the evening hungry and thirsty bitcoiners would mingle with that crowd. I couldn’t think of a better setting for some serious orange pilling.

When the panel discussion ended I left. I had a long ride home and didn’t need another beer. I reflected on my visit. One thing was certain. There was a buzz to this place. An excitement. A sense that this is where the real shit was happening. It was contagious. It got me excited. This well funded dive bar gave me hope about the future of bitcoin in New York. BitLicense be damned. Alex Gladstein will be visiting in a few weeks. I plan to be there.