The Bitcoin Convention 2025 in Las Vegas, scheduled for the final week of Might, consists of a number of notable political figures slated as audio system, together with returning visitor and Bitcoin advocate Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). Additionally showing are Trump’s so-called “A.I. and Crypto Czar,” David Sacks, and Bo Hines, the “Government Director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Belongings on the White Home.”
This yr, a less-expected and virtually otherworldly contingent will probably make an look as nicely — no less than within the viewers, if not beamed up and searching straight into the stage’s spotlights. Like hearth from the skies, an sudden $3,000 bitcoin donation which no person requested for crashlanded in Roswell, New Mexico, earlier this yr, leaving metropolis council members wrestling with whether or not to as soon as once more reply historical past’s name, by establishing the US’ first strategic bitcoin reserve — on the metropolis degree or in any other case — earlier than different U.S. states and even the U.S. Congress itself acts definitively (following President Donald Trump’s government order).
Roswell is residence to a couple stuff you won’t count on — world-renowned dairy farming and one of many world’s largest mozzarella cheese factories; aerospace and aviation industries with a well-known “plane graveyard” which as soon as housed Elvis Presley’s private small aircraft, “Hound Canine II,” for 35 years; a vibrant arts, museums and cultural scene — but additionally a thriving tourism trade, largely constructed round what Roswell is absolutely identified for: alien craft.
However Roswell is absolutely identified worldwide for the 1947 “UFO incident.” In early July 1947, a presumably once-flying object of unknown origin crashed and was destroyed, touchdown roughly at close by Corona, New Mexico, recovered later and delivered to the now-defunct Roswell Military Air Area’s 509th, a World Warfare II-era army base, nonetheless housing the US’ solely nuclear bombs on the time in addition to the U.S.’s solely pilots, mechanics, and officers geared up to the touch them.
Hypothesis nonetheless rages as as to whether the recovered craft and its alleged pilot and passengers — experiences of oddly formed our bodies persist however are extremely debated nonetheless — have been from a supposed extraterrestrial location, or the results of a U.S. army experiment.
On the time, the native newspaper, the Roswell Each day Document, family-owned since 1891 and nonetheless in print at present, reported the headline seen around the globe:
RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Area
Readers now know that the Each day Document adopted up with a retraction, restating the army’s revised declare that the crashed car was “simply” a high-altitude climate balloon. Twenty first-century examination of a zoomed-in photograph from the 1947 “flying saucer” staged press photograph reveals in any other case, in keeping with Donald Burleson, cryptanalyst and former professor of arithmetic at Jap New Mexico College-Roswell. Burleson can also be a printed writer and has written “Wanting Up,” one of many Each day Document’s recurring columns on UFOs, for 25 years.
The town of Roswell hosts the Worldwide UFO Museum and Analysis Middle, which opened in 1992 and attracts over 220,000 guests yearly, Government Director Karen Jaramillo advised The Related Press throughout a 2023 interview marking the museum’s 5 millionth customer. Roswell additionally hosts an annual UFO pageant, which, in keeping with town’s web site in 2023 “… had a $510,205 direct financial affect for Roswell …” in a lockdowns-recovery rebuilding yr for the occasion(s).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell,_New_Mexico#Local_industry
Stranger in a Unusual Land
Roswell by and huge and the newspaper alike is at present residence to many oddities, myself included. A Nashville transplant with an odd missionary calling, final yr the Document took me in as their in-house night copy editor — with a desk, landline, sick pay, and every thing … it’s type of surreal. (I’m advised the desks are from the WWII military air base. And the chairs? On day three, I introduced in my very own.)
Germaine to at present, I additionally possess certifications in bitcoin and have been orange-pilling folks for years. The newspaper finally allowed me to meet that second calling of mine by contributing as a author as nicely, through a Sunday column the place I started writing about bitcoin, for the Document. I’m honored to have providentially been introduced on board simply in time to doc your complete “story arc” of President Trump’s first-term anti-bitcoin hostility and his 2024 reversal in my October 2024 opinion column — in addition to Trump’s unexpectedly well-received “By no means promote your bitcoin!” exclamation, whereas campaigning at 2024’s Nashville Bitcoin Convention. With “World Warfare Bitcoin,” I described for “normie” newspaper readers the strategic race occurring among the many a number of nations now competing to build up and mine “all of the remaining bitcoin.”
And thru all of it, I didn’t even get fired. But. However being within the bitcoin information trade and seeing the pattern, in January I proposed a strategic bitcoin reserve for Roswell, because the metropolis obtained a $3,000 in bitcoin donation from an nameless out-of-state reader of the newspaper column. To my thoughts, with or with out authorities “approval” or bitcoin media trade recognition, I’ve a confirmed blockchain transaction from January 3, 2025, that claims the Roswell Strategic Bitcoin Reserve has been established. Interval.
Who custodies and manages it’s nonetheless up for grabs, however I ask others, “Are we Bitcoiners or not?”
However OK, the concept is at the moment being mulled over by some metropolis councilors who’ve given me the time of day, as I wish to give the donation to town as our begin, and search for private and company sponsorships from there (in order to not create any new bills or taxes for town). We’re struggling, being trustworthy.
Whereas town council can after all be a troublesome nut, and bitcoin is new and bewildering to many nonetheless, Roswell Metropolis Legal professional Hess Yntema kindly replied to me lately through e mail, “As for accepting a present of Bitcoin, in New Mexico, municipalities are empowered to amass actual and private property. NMSA 1978, §3-18-1(C). … Private property is broad and consists of tangible and intangible belongings; this would come with Bitcoin. The Metropolis is all the time grateful when a donation is made to additional the general public good.”
To assist with the decision-making course of maybe, I’m grateful to report that Bitcoin Journal has prolonged an invite to all 10 members of the Roswell Metropolis Council plus Mayor Timothy Jennings to attend the occasion whether or not the council approves the custody and administration of a city-held bitcoin reserve or not. Mayor Jennings’ workplace replied graciously that he can be unable to attend on these dates, whereas at press time no less than one different metropolis councilor, Cristina Arnold, has dedicated to be “fascinated by it.” Metropolis Councilor Ed Heldenbrand and Metropolis Legal professional Hess Yntema are, with Arnold, excited to be ushering in Roswell’s subsequent step, for posterity’s sake if not their technology: “… an amazing step for the longer term,” Heldenbrand stated in a textual content message.
The Roswell Metropolis Council subsequent meets on Thursday, Might 8, at 6:00 p.m. Mountain time, with conferences livestreamed over YouTube, the place whether or not the subject of the proposed donation might be mentioned stays unknown at press time. Previous to this assembly nevertheless, two Roswell metropolis councilors, one from town’s finance committee, have scheduled a gathering with myself and Hess this week to debate “the process for accepting the Bitcoin,” in keeping with a bunch textual content message from my ward’s councilor organizing the meetup.
“…Attempting to front-run the market to make sure New Mexico stays a wealthy state,” State Sen. Anthony Thornton (R-NM, Dist. 19) introduced a strategic reserve invoice, S.B. 275, through the current legislative session. The invoice was “narrowly tabled” 5-4, Thornton later said.
Requested for extra remark this week about “why” a bitcoin reserve, Thornton responded to me in written element: “I do consider that as our debt primarily based fiat forex (i.e., the U.S. greenback) continues to be debased by the Fed central bankers, extra folks, extra firms, extra municipalities, extra sovereign governments will resolve to retailer their wealth in belongings that can’t be produced by a printing press… therefore commodities akin to gold and silver will proceed to rise in worth.
“Nonetheless, the shortage of Bitcoin and its digital mobility will probably make it the one asset utilized by your complete world as the very best place to retailer one’s long-term capital.”
It’s in no way stunning that denizens of Roswell would possibly nonetheless be among the many first within the nation to answer bitcoin’s siren track, calling out around the globe to Earth’s extra clever life varieties for 16 years now.
Roswellians — accustomed as they now are to random new applied sciences of mysterious origin showing from the sky and disrupting all social order, trade and established monetary infrastructures — would possibly simply have an unfair benefit over others in “grokking” bitcoin due to such an “incident” already being part of their collective psyche.
Readers considering studying extra about bitcoin firsthand could eerily discover themselves being drawn to Las Vegas this Might to attend the Las Vegas Bitcoin Convention 2025’s two-day convention lineup, plus extra occasions all through the week.
Disclosure: The writer each holds bitcoin as a financial savings asset, doesn’t consider in aliens and has unsuccessfully run for public workplace in Roswell 3 times: This content material may subsequently comprise unintended monetary and/or political biases referring to the subject material, and is the opinion of the writer.
This can be a visitor submit by Man Malone. Opinions expressed are fully their very own and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
