Night clubs in Miami mourn the absence of high-ranking crypto entrepreneurs

It was the spring of 2021 and Miamis trendiest night clubs were flooded with calls from cryptocurrency companies that nobody had heard of. They wanted to reserve a lot of tables - or rent an entire event location for a whole evening at a price of half a million dollars or more.

Since the price of Bitcoin was $ 60,000 at the time and crypto became a mainstream, his biggest beneficiaries came to the city of Florida to show their wealth at wasteful parties.

"All of these children came down from crypto out of the blue and spent a lot of money - like a crazy amount of money," said Andrea Vercati, director of food and drinks at the Moxy Hotel Group.

"They booked tables for $ 50,000, and it was like who the hell are these people," added Vermercati, former director of Groot Hospitality, which runs some of the hottest night clubs in Miami, including Liv, Story and Swan.

The new party goers were "95 percent men, young. "You couldn't say that they had a lot of money if they were just running around."

A little more than a year later, the phones stopped ranging after the collapse of the Bahama -based stock exchange FTX shaken the market and brought the industry into trouble. The crypto fans who frequent Miamis clubs are "completely disappearing," said Vermercati.

The on the dance floor had behaved as if there was no tomorrow. In the end it turns out that they might be right. "They wanted to show that they have no limits," recalls Vermercati. "They ordered 12 or 24 bottles of the most expensive champagne and simply showered without drinking anything."

In June last year, a group that claimed to have sold their cryptocurrency company celebrated the luck in E11even, a neon-lit nightclub with trapezoidal dancing and burlesque shows. "50 cents occurred and their expenses amounted to more than one million dollars," said Gino Lopinto, the club's partnership partner. "You paid in crypto."

Lopinto remembered: "They had bathtubs full of champagne out and gave 50 cents a bunch of cash to throw."

e11eveven started in April 2021 with the acceptance of payments in cryptocurrency. The club processed transactions worth more than $ 6 million last year. But in the past three months, the club has processed less than $ 10,000-"a monster, a huge decline," he said.

The crypto crowd really wanted to brag about its newly discovered wealth, said Lopinto, who described how the customers would prove how rich it was by opening the crypto money exchanges on their smartphones.

"You would not show your bank account, but people show their crypto money exchanges," he said. "I saw more crypto money exchanges in a year than bank accounts in my whole life."

The endless parties underlined Miami's status as an epicenter of the US cryptocurrency industry. Florida's low taxes were a major attraction, as were less stressful COVID-19 restrictions that made the city a magnet for night owls.

In March 2021, FTX paid $ 135 million to secure the name rights for the arena for 19 years in which the Miami Heat basketball team plays. In June 2021, the Bitcoin Conference took place in Miami after moving from Los Angeles.

Miami's club operator have always been able to rely on a few big weekends, such as Art Basel, Musikfestival Ultra and New Year's Eve. But in the past two years, the participants in Bitcoin events have asked for as many tables and bought entire venues in some cases to throw private parties.

"On the larger crypto weekends, these young tech types came to the groups that came to private buyouts," said Alan Roth, owner of the Rosa Sky Rooft Lounge. "A buyout costs between 20 and 50 percent more than we would earn on a normal evening."

crypto money was also flooded into other parts of Miami's luxury scene. "They bought large houses for more than $ 25 million, they rented great yachts. They had money and spent lavishly," said Brett Harris, Executive Director of Luxury Sales at the real estate company Douglas Elliman. "They bought large houses in cash, without financing - they converted Bitcoin into cash to buy it."

"It was the revenge of the nerds," said Harris, adding that crypto entrepreneurs wanted to buy land for entertainment with home cinemas and water features.

Michael Simpkins, Managing Director of the E11even cryptocurrency surgery in Miami, said: "For many of them, the money came pretty quickly, and it is easier to spend it if it comes quickly."

Roth hopes that the latest source of the demand for Miami's luxury lifestyle will return. "I don't think the cryptom market will collapse and be done. It's like in the normal market - it goes up and down. I don't have the feeling that you are afraid."

Not all agree. "We don't believe that they will come back," said Vermercati.