Bitcoin Enthusiasts Shrug Off Decline As They Party On Cryptocurrency Cruise

A group of 600 bitcoin millionaires, at least on paper, were undeterred when – while they were partying on the annual Blockchain Cruise – the price of bitcoin dropped from $13,500 to $10,000, underscoring the risks cryptocurrency investors are willing to take on as they trade digital coins.

According to a report in Bloomberg, as the ship sailed from Singapore and the guests partied with bottomless drinks and bitcoin-themed music, they took the sudden price drop in stride, arguing that bitcoin is on a positive path.

“Nothing goes up in a straight line,” explained Ronnie Moas, the founder of Standpoint Research, who was one of the speakers on the cruise. He said that in an ideal situation, bitcoin could rise to $300,000 in a seven-year period. “This is something that you either believe in or not,” he added.

While bitcoin had a meteoric ride last year, starting out at $1,000 and surpassing $19,000 at one point, the value began toward the end of last year and into the new year, over concerns of increased regulatory scrutiny of digital currencies.

Among the other speakers on the cruise were Jose Gomez, a former aide to the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; Kaspar Korjus, the head of Estonia’s e-residency program; and Jorg Molt, an early digital currency backer. The headlining speaker was John McAfee, the software executive with a checkered past who now runs MGT Capital Investments, a small company with a bitcoin mining business. McAfee has become one of the big defenders of cryptocurrency, with more than 700,000 followers on Twitter.

During his speech on the cruise, McAfee said that the decline in the price of bitcoin is due to concerns that governments around the world can intervene with cryptocurrency, concerns that he claimed are unfounded. “You cannot force a ban on a distributed system,” McAfee said in an interview with Bloomberg. “It’s like, how do you ban smoking weed? You can’t ban it. People will come back.”