The Conference Effect: Bitcoin Stumbles Despite Bullish Buzz

Bitcoin Falls Post-Conference: Sell the News in Action?

The 2025 Bitcoin Conference held in Las Vegas this week kicked off as BTC (BTC -0.69%) reached new highs. By the end of the event, however, and at the time of writing, BTC/USD is trading at just above $105K, about 6% off its all-time high (ATH) of almost $112,000, which was hit just last week.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $2 trillion, went down despite a flurry of positive news and an endorsement by Vice President JD Vance in a speech at the conference.

This isn’t out of the ordinary, though; crypto prices tend to suffer a correction whenever there’s a conference, which has become a sell-the-news moment.

According to the historical data collected by Galaxy Research across five conferences, Bitcoin has performed poorly both during and after these gatherings.

The 2019 event in San Francisco recorded the biggest decline of 10% during the conference and a 24% drop over the following month. The 2022 conference in Miami experienced a 29% drawdown in the month following the event, whereas during the event itself, the drop was only 1%. Both of these instances, however, happened in the middle of bear markets. 

While the price action still ventured into negative territory, all the other times, the drop in price has been primarily in single digits, as we are seeing this time as well, so far.

At last year’s Nashville Bitcoin Conference, which featured a keynote by President Donald Trump, BTC had a sharp spike in 1-day implied volatility above 90, only to experience a swift reversal and an almost 30% decline in price within two days. 

A 30% retracement like this would take us back to about $77K, which is the area where Bitcoin set a multimonth bottom in April. While it remains to be seen just how much correction BTC would undergo this time, revisiting $100K can very well be expected.

Despite the clear trend, the ongoing pullback isn’t really a concerning or bearish signal as it comes after having a 49% upside in less than two months. In fact, such a consolidation is healthy for Bitcoin before it gears up for its next move up towards yet another ATH.

“We should welcome a healthy little bitcoin pullback to complete the 1st 60-day cycle. They aid in refueling a sustainable bull trend.”

– Trader Bob Loukas

Similar views are shared by another crypto trader, Honey, who noted on Friday in an X post, “Ideally we should bottom within the next couple of days and resume the uptrend in June.” This post comes a week after she stated now “that the golden cross has happened on BTC, we generally see a market-wide pullback.” Both times, she noted that any “dips are for buying.”

This is all coming against the backdrop of continued institutional buying and favorable regulatory developments, which suggests and supports a positive performance ahead for Bitcoin. 

The crypto king has historically enjoyed a weaker Q3 with an average of 6% returns but a strong Q4 with an average return of 85.4%, as per CoinGlass. 

While good days are generally expected ahead for Bitcoin, the small dip that the cryptocurrency experienced this week still ended up liquidating leverage traders. In the past 24 hours, 216,367 traders were liquidated for a total of $710.60 million with longs, i.e., betting on an increase in the asset’s price in the future, accounting for the vast majority of it.

One particular crypto trader got liquidated for more than $100 million after getting popular for a $1 billion (40x) leveraged Bitcoin position on Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives platform.

VP Vance Endorses Bitcoin and Stablecoins at 2025 Conference

For the last six years, the Bitcoin conferences have been held to gather the global BTC community and drive the movement for sound money and financial freedom. Given this conference’s popularity, next year’s schedule has already been announced. It will take place at the Venetian Las Vegas from April 27 – 29, 2026.

“Bitcoin 2025 was the largest event in Bitcoin’s history and arrived at a pivotal moment for the industry. Next year, we are going to compound it into not only the biggest event in Bitcoin’s history, but one of the largest and most important events globally.”

– Brandon Green, Chief of Staff at BTC Inc

This time around, the three-day event took place in Las Vegas from May 27th to 29th, which was attended by thousands of people who believe in the world’s most resilient monetary network. 

While last time, President Trump took centre stage at the biggest Bitcoin conference of the year, this time Vice President Vance used the platform to endorse Bitcoin, push the Trump administration’s efforts on favorable legislation, and praise the crypto industry’s initiative in influencing US politics last year. He told the crowd:

“I believe you changed the direct trajectory of our country because of it.” 

Vance also urged the cryptocurrency community to continue pressuring Congress to pass pro-crypto legislation.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unleash innovation and use it to improve the lives of countless American citizens. But if we fail to create regulatory clarity now, we risk chasing this $3 trillion industry offshore in search of a friendly jurisdiction.”

– Vance

Talking about the stablecoin legislation (GENIUS Act), in particular, that recently passed the Senate with bipartisan support, Vance said that the Trump administration doesn’t see fiat-backed digital assets as a threat to the “integrity of the U.S. dollar,” but the opposite. “We view them as a force multiplier of our economic might,” he said.

The collective market cap of stablecoins has surpassed $250 billion, as per CoinGeko. Tether’s USDT (USDT +0.01%) accounts for more than 61% of the entire market share, followed by Circle’s USDC (USDC +0.01%), which has a 24.4% share.

The majority of stablecoins are also US dollar-backed, with a combined market cap of $245.6 billion.

From the podium at the Venetian, Vance said that these “dollar-pegged stablecoins, particularly once GENIUS is enacted, are only going to help the American economy,” and “it’s only going to help the American dollar.”

Trump’s crypto and AI advisor, David Sacks, has also said that a legal framework regulating stablecoins “could create trillions of dollars of demand for our Treasuries practically overnight.” 

Besides promoting the stablecoin legislation, Vance praised the administration’s efforts to roll back regulations in an attempt to bolster digital assets. This includes the repeal of the key accounting rule (SAB 121), which allowed banks to now custody Bitcoin. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have also rescinded their anti-crypto guidance.

Just this week, the Department of Labor rescinded a 2022 guidance that discouraged cryptocurrency investments in 401(k) retirement plans. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said that it is the fiduciaries’ duty to make the decision whether crypto belongs in 401(k) plans.

In addition to it all, Vance also took a shot at former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler.

“We fired Gary Gensler — and we’re going to fire everyone like him.”

– Vance

Furthermore, the vice president applauded the Trump administration for the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve and shared that he owns “a fair amount of bitcoin today.”  He also said that Bitcoin, which represents “genuine, ground-up innovation,” would be “involved in the strategic future of our country.”

Vance believes the number of Americans holding BTC would double “before too long.”

Trump Brothers Rally Behind Bitcoin at Conference

Besides the Vice President, the Bitcoin Conference in America’s gambling capital was also attended by Trump’s eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr, who called for a new financial order. 

Talking to the crowd, Eric said that traditional finance (TradFi) was “weaponized” against the crypto community and that he “would love to see some of the big banks go extinct,” which “they deserve.”

These views have been the result of being debanked by the traditional financial system. Crypto, according to him, is a cure to corruption, by making everything cheaper, faster, safer, and more transparent. “It makes the whole system more functional,” he said.

Meanwhile, Trump Jr talked about being “very long crypto,” which he said is “a huge part of everything that we do right now.”

The Trump brothers also shared their targets for Bitcoin price with Don Jr. expecting BTC to trade “between $175,000 and $150,000,” while Eric sees it clearing “the moon” by the next year-end.

“Every single day, people are allocating billions and billions of dollars to it. You know, 0.1 Bitcoin is going to be worth an absolute fortune,” said Eric, while noting that demand for the hard-capped BTC is outstripping its supply.

Most recently, Trump Media and Technology Group (DJT: Nasdaq), the operator of Truth Social and Truth.Fi, announced its plan to raise $2.5 billion to start a Bitcoin treasury. Eric’s American Bitcoin is also “staking sats” in order to increase its “Bitcoin per share” metric.

According to him, more and more institutions, including “private offices” and “royal families,” are developing a Bitcoin treasury strategy, while there were fewer than 100 companies “treasuring Bitcoin” just a year ago. And according to Eric:

“This isn’t just in America. This is, you know, the entire Middle East. This is Africa. This is all of Asia. Everybody wants it. No one wants to get rid of it.”

At the event, Eric also shared that it was Strategy co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor who helped the Trump family get deeper into crypto.

As one of the speakers at the event, Saylor encouraged investors to stay committed to Bitcoin, which he said is “engineered to outperform everything.” He urged the room full of people to take their fiat currency, bonds, long-term capital, and real estate and convert them all into Bitcoin.

According to Saylor, “equity” is another way to wealth, which means sharing the opportunity with investors who are willing to share the risk. This can’t be done by an individual, though, but only by a company like Metaplanet, he said.

He also emphasized compliance. “You should create the best company you can create within the rules of your market,” he said in his speech. And once a “special, very productive enterprise” has been created, then use its power “to raise capital, invest in Bitcoin, and create wealth,” Saylor added.

In line with these views, Saylor’s Strategy has amassed a total of 580,250 BTC, which accounts for 2.76% of Bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million.

Saylor and his company have also been advising other organizations to take a similar route. Video game retailer GameStop (GME +0.78%) is among those that adopted Bitcoin as a treasury reserve, announcing a purchase of 4,710 BTC valued at about $513 million this week. 

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen called Bitcoin a hedge “against global currency devaluation and systemic risk” during his speech at the conference. Cryptocurrency, according to him, offers unique advantages over gold, citing its portability, verifiability, scarcity, and still being in its infancy, so offering tremendous upside as well.

Ross Ulbricht Calls for Unity and Freedom in Bitcoin’s Future

Among the key speakers of the Bitcoin Conference 2025 was Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who talked about focusing on three key principles: decentralization, freedom, and unity, for Bitcoin’s future. He said:

“So just as long as we can agree that we deserve freedom, and that decentralization is how we secure it, we can be united. We can have each other’s backs. Just like you had mine.”

This was Ulbricht’s first public appearance after being released from prison. Pardoning Ulbricht earlier this year was one of the promises that Trump delivered when he became president. At the event, Ulbricht expressed his gratitude to President Trump and supporters who called for his release.

Ulbricht’s call for solidarity wasn’t just for Bitcoiners but for the entire crypto community. He said:

“We can argue, but never see each other as enemies. Those who oppose decentralization and freedom thrive on our division. Stay united.” 

Nigel Farage, meanwhile, announced at the event that Reform UK will now accept donations in Bitcoin and other crypto, which he said makes it the “first political party in Britain” to do so.

At the same conference, fintech company Block (SQ +0.57%) piloted real-time Bitcoin payments using the Lightning Network on its platform, Square. The feature will go live across eligible sellers in the second half of the year and will be made available to all merchants next year.

This feature builds on the company’s “Bitcoin Conversions” tool that was launched last year. Those sellers who opted for this option, which automatically converts a fixed portion of daily sales into BTC, have had their holdings grow by about 70% over the past year, said the company.

Click here to learn all about investing in Bitcoin (BTC).

Macro Trends and Institutional Inflows Fuel BTC Optimism

The Bitcoin conference shows that the largest cryptocurrency has been capturing a significant mind share, adoption, and capital. So, while the price is consolidating, the broader trend is very bullish.

In fact, institutions have poured $49 billion into Bitcoin through BlackRock’s IBIT alone. With these net inflows, IBIT has attracted over four times the amount that’s been invested in Fidelity’s FBTC, according to SoSoValue.

IBIT actually had its largest-ever monthly inflow in May, capturing over $6.35 billion, which has pushed its total assets under management to above $70 bln. With these numbers, IBIT now ranks among the top five ETFs by YTD inflows across 4,200 US-listed funds.

Bloomberg ETF strategist Eric Balchunas points to the fund’s 90-day rolling volatility reaching its lowest level since its inception, coupled with Bitcoin’s steady increase in price, as the reason for IBIT drawing so much interest. 

IBIT actually hasn’t had an outflow since April 9. Meanwhile, the broad US spot Bitcoin ETFs have broken their ten-day running streak of inflows that totaled $4.26 billion with an outflow of $346.8 million on May 29, as per the data from Farside.

This massive interest in Bitcoin comes at a time when the US economy shrank by an annualized 0.2% in Q1 of 2025, marking the first contraction since 2022, as per the official statistics released this week.

The 0.2% decrease in the value of goods and services provided within the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), reflects an increase in imports and a decrease in government spending. A deceleration in consumer spending has also been reported by the BEA.

As Bitcoin benefits from global uncertainty and other favourable macro trends like a weakening US dollar and high inflation, its growing adoption is also helping bring the limelight to the broader crypto industry.

For instance, the consolidation in BTC price has ETH (ETH -1.78%) now trading above $2,600, an increase of 43.6% in the past month. Even spot Ether ETFs have had nine consecutive days of inflows.

For Ether, yet another positive news came in the form of US securities law, a branch of the SEC, publishing a statement that says crypto staking does not implicate securities law. The statement says that when node operators, validators, delegates, custodians, nominators, and entities stake crypto on their own, directly with a third party, or on behalf of the asset, then it will be treated similarly to mining.

This clarification from the regulator is critical in removing the hurdle for offering staking in spot ETH ETFs and may even speed up their approval process.

Such an approval can send Ethereum prices skyward, similar to Bitcoin, but for now, the asset is setting the stage for the $3,000 breakout.

As for BTC, once it is done consolidating and is ready for another leg upwards, the key zone of interest is $120K. As the majors fly, the broad crypto market, which is currently standing around $3.45 trillion, is also likely to gain attention and traction.

Overall, there are exciting times ahead for Bitcoin and crypto as the narratives get louder and network effects get stronger. Are you ready for the next way of explosive momentum and price expansion?

Click here for a list of top Bitcoin ETFs to invest in.