From fugitives to financial frontliners, the Token2049 conference marks crypto’s dramatic comeback under Trump
It was a spectacle of decadence, defiance, and digital ambition. At the Token2049 conference in Dubai this past week, 15,000 attendees gathered to celebrate what many saw as a new golden age for crypto—one supercharged by President Donald Trump’s return to office and his sweeping deregulation of the digital finance industry.
Gone were the days of FBI raids, courtroom dramas, and prison cells. This time, some of crypto’s most controversial figures walked free, gave keynote speeches, and toasted to their future with bottles of Armand de Brignac champagne at desert raves.
Among them was Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, who served a short prison sentence last year and whose company paid a record $4.3 billion fine to U.S. regulators in 2023. Now based in Abu Dhabi, Zhao entered the conference to thunderous techno beats and laser lights, later telling a packed hall, “I’m always bullish.”
Elsewhere at the event, Justin Sun—another crypto billionaire who recently dropped $6.2 million on a banana duct-taped to a wall—unveiled plans for a new exchange-traded fund linked to his cryptocurrency. “I’m not here for the money,” Sun declared during his presentation. He also confirmed that the SEC had paused a lawsuit against him after he invested $75 million into the Trump-backed venture, World Liberty Financial.
Arthur Hayes, the former Citigroup trader and co-founder of BitMEX, took to the stage with bold predictions for bitcoin’s future. Pardoned by Trump in March following a money laundering conviction, Hayes said: “Why aren’t you buying bitcoin right f—king now?” He told the crowd he expected bitcoin to hit $1 million by 2028.
Throughout the conference, crypto’s elite sipped champagne, posed with mascots, and zipped above the heads of onlookers on a zipline. The buzz around Trump’s pro-crypto policies was unmistakable. His administration had effectively dismantled many of the investigations and oversight efforts that had once plagued the industry.
At the centre of it all was Trump’s son, Eric, and Zach Witkoff, son of the president’s special envoy to the Middle East. Promoting their company, World Liberty, the pair championed the USD1 stablecoin—a Trump-family-backed digital dollar now tied to multibillion-dollar deals.
MGX, a UAE state-backed investor, announced a $2 billion investment into Binance, which would be paid in USD1. “We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us,” Witkoff said. “I think it’s only the beginning.” The more USD1 is circulated, the greater the Trump family’s profits from U.S. Treasury assets that underpin it.
Witkoff also revealed a new partnership with Justin Sun to issue billions more USD1 tokens on the Tron blockchain network. “The exact same people who were coming after us were going after the crypto community,” Eric Trump told the crowd, as applause and whoops filled the hall.
Notably, the presence of Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) signalled a changing reputation for the UAE. Once criticised for weak oversight, the country was recently removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s “gray list” after launching VARA and tightening controls.
“The vast majority of crypto firms acted responsibly,” said Deepa Raja Carbon, VARA’s managing director. “But they needed to be brought out of the basement.”
As night fell on the final day, attendees followed a drone display spelling “Who let the dogs out?” before heading into the desert. There, they raved beneath giant flaming wings, chanted to techno remixes, and declared crypto’s rebirth under strobe lights and shooting flames.
With Trump reshaping the rules and Dubai offering a global stage, the industry’s outlaws have returned—not as fugitives, but as frontliners of a new financial order.
