The Empty Room That Paid 826%

A week after I bought my ticket to the Crypto AI Conference in Lisbon, the organizers slashed the price by 80%. That’s never a good sign.

I almost didn’t go.

I’d spent the previous few months bouncing between crypto conferences in Nashville, Singapore, and New York. Every room was packed. Every session had a line out the door.

So when I walked into the conference hall in Lisbon five minutes before the first presentation, I stopped in the doorway.

The place was a ghost town, with maybe a few dozen people scattered across a hall built for hundreds.

I re-read the welcome sign at the front of the room: Crypto AI Conference 2024. I was in the right place… but I felt like I’d made a huge mistake.

I seriously considered cutting my trip short.

Then I remembered Teeka’s experience back in 2016, when he walked into a nearly empty room at CES to hear a presentation about bitcoin. You could almost hear a pin drop. But what he heard there convinced him he’d seen the future.

He flew home determined to recommend bitcoin to readers — even after his publishers threatened to fire him for doing so. They thought he was crazy.

Fast forward, and bitcoin has gone on to soar as high as 29,900% from Teeka’s early recommendation.

So instead of leaving, I found a seat and started listening.

My “Lightbulb” Moment