After a series of tweets defending cryptocurrency and opposing President Joe Biden's stance on cryptocurrency, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to make his first appearance as a presidential candidate at the Bitcoin 2023 conference, which is scheduled for May 18 and until May 20.
According to Brandon Green, chief of staff for Bitcoin conference organizer BTC Media, Kennedy was invited to be a keynote speaker after the presidential candidate expressed support for cryptocurrencies. Green stressed that Kennedy would not receive any money for his speech, which coincides with the words of the politician's spokesperson Stefanie Spear. Earlier, Spear claimed that Kennedy would not accept speaking fees for events he would attend during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, the cheapest tickets to the conference cost $899, whereas the VIP "Whale" pass is offered for nearly $10,000.
The 2024 presidential candidate has become famous not only for his uncle, President John Kennedy, but also for his controversial views, such as his skepticism for vaccines and, most importantly, his advocacy of cryptocurrencies. Environmentalists oppose cryptocurrencies primarily because of Bitcoin's highly energy-intensive proof-of-work protocol. Yet, Kennedy takes a less maximalist view of cryptocurrencies' impact on the natural environment.
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"Yes, energy use is a concern (though somewhat overstated), but Bitcoin mining uses about the same as video games, and no one is calling for a ban on those. The environmental argument is a selective pretext to suppress anything that threatens elite power structures. Bitcoin, for example," he wrote in a recent tweet commenting on Joe Biden's initiative to impose a tax on crypto miners equal to 30% of the value of the electricity they consume.
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Bitcoin 2023 will feature many other prominent speakers such as Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor, Human Rights Foundation Chief Strategy Officer Alex Gladstein, Credit Suisse CEO Zoltan Pozsar, Michael Lewis, bestselling author of sixteen books including The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, Flash Boys, and The Big Short, and other influencers. Interestingly, the conference will also be attended by Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate, and Ridwan Kamil, the governor of Indonesia's West Java province.
