Tucked away on a not-so-busy street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan is a bar that has grown to become a dominant cultural force among New York City’s Bitcoin community.
PubKey, a Bitcoin-centric dive bar, offers craft beers, cocktails, a food menu prepared by a world-renowned chef — and the chance to be orange-pilled by some of Bitcoin’s most vocal proponents.
At first glance, it’s not entirely obvious to outsiders that it is a Bitcoin bar. Thomas Pacchia, one of PubKey’s owners, estimates that roughly 80% of PubKey’s patrons don’t even know it’s a Bitcoin bar. They just see it as a cool neighborhood tavern.
“We try to bury a lot of the Bitcoin elements to a certain extent because, I would say, for most people, Bitcoin is off-putting,” he explains.
But the signs are all there if you know what to look for. The first clue is in the name: PubKey, short for “public key” and a clever play on the fact that it is both a pub and a Bitcoin cultural center.
A display shelf behind the bar is filled with books like The Book Of Satoshi by Phil Champagne and Broken Money by Lyn Alden, as well as Russian nesting dolls of Sam Bankman-Fried, Su Zhu, Alex Mashinsky and Do Kwon — the four horsemen of last cycle’s crypto apocalypse. There are two numerical displays with a running count of Bitcoin’s current price and block number.
And while visitors are there, they may overhear someone talking about Bitcoin, notice some of the crypto-themed decorations, or poke their head into one of the many events hosted in the bar’s backroom. On the night Magazine visits on June 11, Bitcoin podcaster and Real Bedford FC chairman Peter McCormack and his son Conor are speaking about the importance of Bitcoin culture.
“I think real-world connections are really important,” McCormack tells Magazine when asked about why Bitcoiners need a physical space like PubKey. “I think being with people in person is really important. The podcasts, I always insist on doing them in person. I think we need that. And so yeah, I 100% think these physical spaces are hugely important. I think we need a lot more of them.”
And who knows, the undercurrent of Bitcoin content might inspire the normies, many of whom come in and listen to a few minutes of the talk, to want to learn more. As Pacchia puts it:
“It’s really difficult to get somebody excited about it when you’re just telling them about it. But if somebody asks the first question, it’s a completely different conversation.”
For those in the know, the bar offers the option to pay with Bitcoin via the Lightning Network, but only 5% to 7% of customers actually choose to pay in sats on any given day. That percentage naturally rises when there are Bitcoin-specific events.
Any coins the bar does receive are hodled in what could be described as a Bitcoin treasury of sorts. “We were doing it before it was cool,” quips Pacchia.
Bridging dive bar culture with Bitcoin
PubKey opened up in late 2022 to a decent amount of attention from local media, which latched onto the unique angle of a crypto bar opening in NYC. The inspiration to open up the establishment came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, when countless neighborhood dive bars had to close or were at risk of shutting down, including one of Pacchia’s favorite spots.
Pacchia saw the moment as an opportunity to combine two things that meant a great deal to him: the culture and community of the local watering hole and of Bitcoin.
“We had this idea to sort of smash these two things together to help New York City,” he says. “Bridge the gap to the Bitcoin community and sort of help resuscitate and grow the local community here in New York. And as we started to piece this together, and it was one foot in front of the other, we realized that we were really on to something.”
Trump’s visit takes PubKey national
PubKey was thrown into the national spotlight in September 2024 when then-presidential hopeful Donald Trump made a campaign stop at the establishment. He ordered 50 burgers and 50 Diet Cokes, paying for the food and drinks with Bitcoin on the Lightning Network.
The transaction was the first known instance of an American president, current or former, using Bitcoin. Not everyone was thrilled that PubKey hosted Trump, and the bar was review-bombed after the story went viral. Both Google Maps and Yelp had to temporarily disable new reviews.
But Pacchia says the experience was actually overwhelmingly positive. “We had people traveling from the tri-state area coming into PubKey. After that, some people traveled across the US or even globally. And, you know, the response was largely, ‘Thank you for doing that.’”
Despite the bar’s association with Trump in the eyes of many in the public, Pacchia makes it clear that PubKey does not endorse or support any political party or candidate. Anyone who wants to learn more about Bitcoin is welcome at the bar. “We’ve hosted a ton of Democrats. We’ve hosted more Democrats than we’ve hosted Republicans,” he says.
The bar had extended the same offer to Kamala Harris to stop by, but only Trump took it up.
A brick-and-mortar space for the chronically onchain
PubKey holds a relatively unique position within the Bitcoin community as a physical space in a predominantly online industry — something not lost on the bar’s regulars.
“I think PubKey’s kind of become a cultural landmark within New York for Bitcoiners and crypto,” says one patron, who tells Magazine he comes to every event the bar hosts. “When you’re into crypto, you want to be able to spend your crypto, or you want to at least be around people who have that same thought process.”
He says he likes to bring along his non-crypto friends to introduce them to Bitcoin and show them how paying with the digital asset works. “It’s really about I gave them an opportunity to explore something,” he explains.
Another regular tells Magazine he appreciates that it’s a normal bar that also happens to have events with major industry leaders. “I went to an event like a week ago, and the SEC commissioner [Hester Peirce] was here,” he says. “It’s cool to meet other people that are interested in Bitcoin or crypto.”
At Peter McCormack’s talk, the podcaster stresses how integrating Bitcoin into a traditional business, like he’s done with Real Bedford, acts as an “accelerant” because it allows local enterprises to tap into the global Bitcoin community. For example, he says Real Bedford has been able to 100x the amount of merch sales it would have otherwise been able to generate.
McCormack tells Magazine that he recently opened a cafe at the stadium, which is quickly becoming its own Bitcoin hub where people can fellowship, learn and explore together, similar to PubKey. “If I go in there, I can get very little work done because people will always come up to me and talk to me about Bitcoin, the local politics or the club.”
“People are inherently social, and we’re not meant to be social exclusively online,” says Pacchia. “So, there’s a broader sense of importance for everyone. But I also think it would be tremendously beneficial for Bitcoiners to spend more time in person, building relationships, discussing different ideas, resolving conflicts in a far more traditional human setting than, you know, just lobbing grenades at one another on Twitter or Nostr or wherever.”
PubKey takes on Washington
After the success of PubKey in New York, the bar’s next move is to open up another one in Washington, DC. Pacchia can’t reveal much, other than that “it’s going to be huge” and that some more info should be coming in the next month or two.
The new bar’s proximity to the people and institutions who drive crypto policy at the national level is not a coincidence, and PubKey is already in contact with a long list of politicians from both sides of the aisle who Pacchia says are excited about the promise of friendly, curated conversations about Bitcoin.
“Bitcoin certainly deserves an embassy in Washington, DC,” he says.
Jonathan DeYoung
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