Bitcoin Beach: When a Surf Town in El Salvador Went Full Crypto

Before the tears start falling, the subject gripping the room is inflation. “We’re seeing [an] unprecedented amount of monetary expansion from central banks right now,” says Jack Mallers, pacing the stage like an evangelist stoking his audience. “It’s very scary.” The scene resembles a tropical TED Talk, one given by a crisply tanned, hoodie-clad 27-year-old who looks like he washed ashore from a night of clubbing. It’s Bitcoin 2021, a two-day confab in Miami in early June, where 12,000 techno-anarchists, Wall Street bankers, and the crypto-curious swarm to conspire about the future of Bitcoin.

Mallers, the founder of ...