A guy, stool-bound inside the front door of PubKey, a Bitcoin-themed bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, motioned for my ID. I reached for my wallet. But wait—turns out he wasn’t actually working the door. “We’re just trying to get people,” he told me, chortling. Epic prank, sir!

Hence got, I made my way to the bar’s backroom for a panel called “Coin Based: Concepts of a Plan for Nation-State Bitcoin Adoption.” “My how things have changed,” read the online event page. “Ideas that only a few weeks ago were laughed at by pundits and commentators are now on the table.”

It was time to decide what exactly the crypto community desires from the Trump administration on a policy level, and a few dozen guys had gathered to listen to a four-guy panel debate potential legislative achievements that could define Trump 2.0. It was off to an annoying start, as expected, but money buys you that right, even digital money.