When Thomas Pacchia first pitched Donald Trump's team on visiting PubKey as a campaign stop, their reaction was about what he expected: “What’s a Bitcoin bar?” On Wednesday, the entire world—or, at least, the segment terminally addicted to Twitter—had a chance to find out. That's when Trump stopped by PubKey en route to a rally in Long Island, buying the bar a round of burgers in what has been described as the first transaction completed by a current or former president using Bitcoin.
Pacchia opened PubKey two years ago, envisioning the West Village dive located just a few blocks from Washington Square Park as a civic tavern of sorts. He sees his watering hole as a place where people can stop by to debate monetary policy and political ethics over beers, just as the founding fathers did 250 years ago (it also doesn't hurt that PubKey's menu was designed by an Eleven Madison Park-trained chef).
So having a one-time future president pop in didn’t surprise him—PubKey has hosted politicians like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the past, and Pacchia has invited every candidate, including Kamala Harris.
The practical details of a presidential visit, however, were more jarring. Pacchia learned about the visit just a week before it happened, working with the Secret Service four hours a day to concoct a game plan, including blacked-out skylights and snipers positioned nearby. “It was insane,” Pacchia told Fortune on Thursday, as bar staff worked to re-open under some semblance of normalcy. “It was a whirlwind.”
One of the most historic transactions in #bitcoin history was just made.
— PUBKEY (@PubKey_NYC) September 18, 2024
President @realDonaldTrump buying burgers at @PubKey_NYC with @tpacchia.
Block height: 861871
You saw it here first. pic.twitter.com/moHUIKDxej
From Fidelity Mafia to Bitcoin burgers
Pacchia is not your typical Manhattan bar owner. A former lawyer, he became Fidelity’s first external hire with Bitcoin expertise when the financial services giant brought him on board in 2015. As Fidelity, led by CEO Abigail Johnson, pushed further into crypto, Pacchia helped build the architecture for its digital asset business, including its custody and exchange platform and the early iterations of its mining operations.
While PubKey is Pacchia’s main focus today—a focus that includes an imminent expansion to D.C., and soon other cities with the financial backing of the Winklevoss twins—he’s still active in the crypto industry. This includes serving on the board of directors for Stronghold Digital Mining and advising Luxor, another Bitcoin mining company.
Pacchia used to live a few blocks from PubKey, which was then a bar called Formerly Crow's: “An epic, quintessential New York dive bar,” as he put it. He would host happy hours with friends to talk about Bitcoin, affectionately dubbing the gathering Crypto at the Crow. When Formery Crow's shut down during the pandemic, Pacchia decided to PubKey, inspired by visions of Paul Revere and Thomas Paine.
“Bitcoin needs its tavern and meeting house to cultivate some of these revolutionary, cultural, economic, and technical changes that it’s been the catalyst for,” Pacchia told Fortune.
He teamed up with two experienced restauranteers, as well as the former Eleven Madison Park chef, to design an eclectic menu of gourmet burgers, hot dogs, and cocktails that could appeal to both Village denizens and crypto acolytes.
Despite its Bitcoin-themed decor, PubKey still attracts a diverse clientele. Last November, Pacchia noticed a couple at the very end of the bar who seemed like they had just finished a long shift of work. He sidled over to chat them up, and they asked about the strange theme. When he told them about PubKey’s Bitcoin ethos, they looked shocked. “Are you messing with us?” they asked. As it turned out, they were photographers for the New York Post, tasked with photographing Caroline Ellison, who just happened to be staying nearby to testify at Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial. The couple had stumbled in by accident.
Presidential visit
Trump’s first flirtation with crypto came in 2022 with the former president launching an NFT collection and earning a modest return. His overall attitude towards crypto remained tentative, though, but that changed as the industry emerged as one of the biggest campaign spenders of the 2024 electoral cycle. Today, Trump embraces blockchain with zeal, adopting some of the sector’s top priorities, which include freeing Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and firing Securities and Exchange Commissioner Gary Gensler.
Despite Trump’s parroting of party lines, he hasn’t won over everyone, as some remain suspicious over his labeling of Bitcoin as a “scam” just a few years ago. Meanwhile, his recent announcement of a so-called DeFi protocol, World Liberty Financial, run by the Trump family has been slammed by critics as a cash grab rather than a genuine effort to create a decentralized product.
During Trump’s visit to PubKey, he still hadn’t mastered the often esoteric lingo, referring to the food he slung out as “crypto burgers” even as one patron tried to correct him to Bitcoin—a distinction that matters to Bitcoin loyalists who view other tokens, in crypto lingo, as "shit coins." Meanwhile, videos of the historic burger transaction initially suggested it had failed, which Pacchia attributed to QR scanning difficulty due to camera flashes. (He added that that about 5% of sales at PubKey are with Bitcoin.)
Pacchia was quick to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. “It’s a long-duration learning curve to get the point where you understand the differences between [Bitcoin and crypto],” Pacchia told Fortune. “It’s unrealistic to expect any one of these politicians to become Bitcoin experts—it’s about who they’re listening to.”
Trump’s appearance validated Pacchia’s decision to start PubKey. He gave the former president two gifts. The first was a replica of the famous “Buy Bitcoin” sign, which a PubKey founding partner held up behind then-Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen during a congressional hearing in 2017. The second was the American flag that another PubKey patron had commissioned to fly above the U.S. Capitol by Senator Elizabeth Warren as a prank, in honor of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
Despite the fanfare, Pacchia insists that PubKey will not endorse a presidential candidate. He’s holding out hope that Harris will stop by. “Bitcoin should not be a partisan issue,” he said. “It’s for everyone.”
