IOSG On-Site Observation: Trump Crypto Luncheon and "Young America"

null

Author: Turbo Guo @TurboGuo | IOSG Ventures

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Meggie for insights on the content, especially the main theme

What does a young person look like?

It might be brave, daring to imagine, eager for quick success, and at the same time afraid of missing out, aggressive, and passionate. 250 years of history can be considered young for a country.

My feeling comes from my experience attending the closed-door Trump Crypto Conference & Gala Luncheon at Mar-a-Lago. Mar-a-Lago is Trump’s residence and winter White House, as well as a private social club. This venue also determined the uniqueness of this event, like a gathering of young, wealthy, flamboyant friends, with chairs that are even gold.

Thirty-six Months Countdown

The most obvious trait of youth is radicalism. Tony Robbins is one of the speakers; he is a famous speaker and best-selling author. He repeatedly says one word: thirty-six months. He says within thirty-six months, robots will replace many jobs; quantum computing will reverse-crack old encryption algorithms; autonomous driving will disrupt eight million driver positions. He packages this number into a countdown: The thirty-six month countdown has begun. Thirty-six months sounds short and unsettling, but he has no intention of making it more cautious.

Nikil, founder of Alchemy, offers another kind of radical view. He directly states: Within five years, the funds transferred by AI agents will surpass the total of all humans worldwide, and not a single dollar will pass through bank accounts anymore. He demonstrates his agent “Dave the Minion” on stage, showing how it helps him book Uber, control twenty devices at home, buy flowers for his girlfriend, and monitor his body fat percentage increase in Costa Rica.

Offstage, I continued chatting with Nikil. They mentioned that the company will soon launch agent cards, most likely white-label solutions, allowing other projects to issue their own agent payment cards under their branding. This product logic aligns with Nikil’s statement on stage: “Within five years, no dollar transactions will go through the banking system.”

The Web3 investor and influencer Wood also expressed a similar view. She pointed out that AI training costs decrease by 75% annually, inference costs by 98%, making it the most “deflationary” technology in history. She said AI-generated content already surpassed human content for the first time in 2025, and predicted that within ten years, it will surpass the total amount of all human writing ever produced. I was fortunate to chat with her briefly; she has a generally bullish outlook on the industry, without particular conservatism.

Listening to these predictions together, there’s a common scent: everyone is convinced that within three to five years, the world will be reshaped along the path they describe. This is very American, very youthful in expression.

American-style Wealth Building: Placing Yourself in the Middle Layer

If radical predictions showcase youthful “thought,” resource integration demonstrates youthful “action.” A common way Americans build wealth is by connecting different circles, establishing influence, and becoming a hub of information and resources.

Tony Robbins exemplifies this path to the extreme.

He walks down from the stage, weaving among small round tables, no more than half a meter from me. He talks about many topics—AI, crypto, robots. He also mentions Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Figure AI’s Brett Adcock, three 22-year-old founders who dropped out of college from Mercor, IBM Vice Chairman Gary Cohn, and others, building his credibility with these names. Honestly, his understanding of crypto isn’t particularly deep, and his judgments aren’t necessarily more accurate than any founder at this event, but he is more knowledgeable than the average person in each field, yet less specialized than professionals. This position is the most influential in spreading ideas.

Many CEOs of large companies probably don’t do frontline research anymore, so they sit and listen to Robbins. Robbins chats with experts across industries, gains insights, organizes information, and then shares it with these CEOs. He also writes books, bringing information to the public. He skillfully combines roles as a best-selling author, resource integrator, and top speaker. He demonstrates the ultimate way of doing business in the US: resource integration.

Note: French football team

Similar logic can be seen in others at the event. Andrea from Trendex introduced me to the Superstar coin concept, which tokenizes members of the French national football team, F1 drivers, and various sports stars. Buying a certain amount grants fans specific benefits. Crypto veterans might be familiar with this, but not everyone can sign so many deals. Interestingly, they brought the World Cup trophy to the event—my first close look at it. The essence of such projects is distribution: you’re not selling technology, but the influence accumulated by the stars.

Another core conclusion about influence came from my chat with former a16z GP Arianna Simpson. If all startups in the future use the same AI development tools, then the ability to ship the same product means technical differences are converging. Distribution channels and user acquisition will become the decisive advantages. This is a judgment from an investor’s perspective, not a technical one.

Note: Former a16z GP Arianna Simpson, billionaire Tim Draper, Luke from Delphi Digital

Enthusiastic Audience

If you only look at the stage, this youthfulness seems abstract. But shifting your gaze from the stage to the audience makes things more tangible.

The most interesting part is taking photos. People on stage are immediately surrounded by the audience, forming a small circle. This radicalism isn’t just a privilege of speakers; it exists among the audience as well. Everyone wants to leave evidence—proof that they were in the room, spoke with that person, caught that moment.

The speakers predict the future with 36 months or 5 years, while the audience captures the present with photos. Both share the same mindset: fear of missing out. It’s a very authentic mirror.

Note: Trump among the crowd

People already in the room don’t need to prove themselves anymore.

But there was a completely different group that day. They entered the venue, did some simple networking, then sat down to listen—nothing particularly exciting. They didn’t rush for photos, didn’t approach the guests, and didn’t applaud every data point.

Perhaps when someone truly feels they belong somewhere, they won’t be especially excited about it.

Among them are some long-time institutional representatives, some close friends, and regular attendees who treat such events as leisure gatherings. For them, being at Mar-a-Lago isn’t a status symbol but a continuation of daily life. They sit in the same room as the enthusiastic photo-takers, but live at very different frequencies.

Putting these two groups together in the same room actually reflects the full picture of this event.

Young America

This country, at least among the people at this event, didn’t show a mature, seasoned atmosphere. Instead, it felt like an ambitious, eager-to-prove-it, loud young person. The crypto industry itself has this vibe—just recognized by regulators, just receiving friendly policies, just seeing a softening attitude from the SEC. It’s excited and anxious at the same time, eager to seize every 36 months, yet afraid of missing every photo opportunity.

Speakers use predictions to lock in the future; audiences use photos to lock in the moment; entrepreneurs use resource integration to secure their position; only a small group of people who have been in the room for years quietly sit in the corner, watching the younger generation declare their presence forcefully.

This state has its limitations. Youth tends to overpromise. Every prediction might be slowed down by reality in execution. Young countries also tend to confuse “volume” with “capability.” Even scarier, these predictions and voices can appear especially real in stock prices.

But youth also has its advantages. It’s willing to redo everything, to cram traditional finance, AI, robotics, quantum computing, and stablecoins into a three-year window. It’s willing to take the risk of overpromising because it believes it has time.

Note: Outdoor pool and bar, shot in the morning, with the bar and small burger bar not yet set up

At the end of the event, everyone was outside by the pool, chatting, eating, drinking. My friends and I also casually talked. Honestly, Mar-a-Lago is beautiful—the lawn is well-kept, the food and drinks are excellent, the sunshine is great. Sitting there gives you a sense of being at a very high place. This experience can boost one’s confidence significantly, making it easier to interact with much more accomplished people afterward. But whether it can truly change anything depends on each person—like playing at a classmate’s party, everyone seems happy, but in the end, everyone returns home to continue their own anxieties.

Author’s note: This article is based on the author’s notes and exchanges during the Trump Crypto Conference & Gala Luncheon at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, in April 2026. The project information and market views mentioned are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice.