” Welcome to the house. »
That’s what Thomas Pacchia told me as I walked into his bar, PubKey, located below street level in Greenwich Village, New York, on a frigid night in late 2023.
Pacchia’s words resonated deeply with me, because I hadn’t yet realized how much I had come to appreciate the fact that the bar had started to feel like a home away from home – or at least an oasis – in a jurisdiction that many Bitcoin enthusiasts have fled following the implementation of the BitLicense and the outbreak of COVID.
Thursday night meetups and programming on PubKey (a play on the term “public key,” a technology that uses asymmetric encryption to validate data on Bitcoin) have become part of my weekly ritual.
The bar’s original and welcoming atmosphere makes it an ideal place to meet other Bitcoin enthusiasts. Its dimly lit, orange-tinted front room, lined with black-painted brick walls, has a divey feel, though the surroundings always appear tidy and well-kept.
Toward the end of the bar closest to the entrance is the PubKey Sanctuary, filled with Bitcoin memorabilia, literature, and trinkets. Its centerpiece is a “Buy ₿itcoin” sign, number four in a series of 21 from “Bitcoin Sign Guy,” Christian Langalis, who was famously captured in a photo holding an identical sign while seated behind Janet Yellen during his tenure as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Heading towards the back of the bar, you pass through a smaller room filled with whimsical Bitcoin-themed posters and signs, as well as a photo booth and a retro arcade table, before entering the room of the more spacious back, which Pacchia calls “the back room”. attic”, probably because of the angular shape of the ceiling. This is where the bar hosts its Bitcoin meetups, and it’s also where you’ll hear from bigger names in the Bitcoin space who have presented to over 60 people in the room.
I recently attended an event at the bar where Bitcoin evangelists Max Keizer and Stacy Herbert gave an overview of what they described as the Bitcoin-powered “Renaissance 2.0” taking place in El Salvador and another in where Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart demystified the mechanics of new Bitcoin ETF tracking.
It is rare to hear such notable voices in the Bitcoin space in such an intimate environment.
So what inspired Pacchia to create this type of venue in a city that has been anything but kind to Bitcoin?
“New York is home,” says Pacchia, who grew up in New Jersey but has lived in New York for some time. “I love New York. It’s one of the best cities on the planet, and it’s not perfect like everywhere else. But there’s a lot of good stuff here.
And maybe he’s biased, but Pacchia just doesn’t believe it when he hears people say New York’s best days are behind him.
“The only thing that has been declared dead more often than Bitcoin is New York City,” he says.
He would know how often Bitcoin has been excluded over the years, as he has been in the Bitcoin space for over a decade.
“The first time I heard about Bitcoin was in the Wired article in November 2011,” says Pacchia, referring to one of the first major articles published about Bitcoin. “Then I was very skeptical, but, you know, it was like a mental virus and I was stuck with it. [me]. When I reached a certain threshold, I said to myself: “This is the best thing ever. “This happened at the end of 2013.”
At that point, he decided to pursue a master’s degree in finance – his third graduate degree after the JD and LLM degrees.
The program took him to Hong Kong, where he saw the importance of one of Bitcoin’s most often promised use cases: remittances.
“In Hong Kong, Sunday is the day off for most domestic helpers,” says Pacchia. “There is a very bittersweet thing that happens every Sunday, where there are a lot of Indonesian women and [the] Philippines [who] it would just free up space and let the party go. It was fun and really cool – lots of karaoke machines and dancing and stuff like that. But in the background, there was always Western Union [sign] advertising 20% off [fees for payments] return to the Philippines. It was a really galvanizing moment for me.
Returning to New York, Pacchia began working in the financial sector for Bitcoin-friendly companies like Fidelity and Digital Asset Holdings. This was around the time that the BitLicense came into effect.
“I think a good [number] of [Bitcoin] the builders left [New York] because he was hostile,” Pacchia explains.
In the years since, Bitcoin culture in New York has been maintained primarily by BitDevs NYC, a community comprised primarily of Bitcoin developers.
“The foundation of Bitcoin in New York is definitely BitDevs,” says Pacchia. “BitDevs continued to focus on Bitcoin, which was really important, because in 2016 [through] In 2018, a lot of money flowed into Ethereum. Consensys [hosted] lots of mixers. There were Crypto Mondays, Ripple stuff, and Cardano stuff, and a lot of money was being spent by venture capital firms to put on events. It’s easy for people to get distracted by shiny objects, and Bitcoin doesn’t really have any sparkle.
At that time, Pacchia was hosting an event at the bar called Formerly Crow’s — which was at PubKey before PubKey.
” I would like [host] “Crypto at the Crow,” says Pacchia. “There were about 20 or 30 people having happy hour here, and [we discussed] almost all Bitcoin stuff. [The meetings] were informal and not necessarily organized.
That’s when Pacchia began organizing Bitcoin meetups for the less technically inclined.
COVID has challenged both groups.
“COVID hit [and] many public-facing influencers went to Austin [or] Nashville,” Pacchia says. “BitDevs were unable to meet. Consistency is key in these meetings, and that has rattled some people.
But in the fall of 2022, Pacchia and his two partners, Greg Minasian and Andrew Newman, opened PubKey — without either of them really having any idea what they were getting into.
“None of us had any training or experience in hospitality,” says Pacchia.
Today, he says the split between old bitcoin and new bitcoin is about 50/50. But the recent price rise has certainly brought more. And it still worked, as the bar attracts a steady stream of seasoned Bitcoin veterans and newcomers to Bitcoin.
Bitcoin-curious people walk through the doors.
“It really started to pick up in October-November [2023] “, says Pacchia. “That’s where we went from having 20 people at a meeting to constantly having 40 people. Now on Thursdays we welcome people all over Bitcoin. [and] crypto industry [as well as those in] TradFi.
“Being in a Bitcoin environment allows me to meet like-minded people,” says Isaac, a regular at meetups. “If I have a question or if I’m interested in something, it gives me the opportunity to think about it with people I know. PubKey has created a very welcoming environment.
When I asked Pacchia if he thought it would have been easier to do what he did with PubKey in a friendlier jurisdiction outside of New York, he responded:
“We want to be beachheads. We want to plant a flag in the sand. Bitcoiners need more playmakers. We need people [who] I’m just going to do stuff. It’s hard to take action and do something, but it’s worth it – and I think Bitcoiners [get that].»
2024-02-23 23:24:59
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