Peter Gottler, CEO of the US-based Cato Institute, has updated the crypto community on the man who photobombed former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen during a 2017 congressional hearing — and it’s in the family.
At the Cato Institute’s online conference on the state of US monetary policy on Monday, Gottler told Fed Chairman Jerome Powell that the ‘Bitcoin Sign Guy’ would become his son-in-law in 2022. In 2017, Yellen testified about the state of the US economy by asking the audience to buy Bitcoin (BTC), later revealed to be Christian Langalis.
“The gentleman who photobombed Janet Yellen with a ‘Buy Bitcoin’ sign behind her back during her Humphrey-Hawkins testimony earlier this year became her son-in-law.
Did I hear that right?
Anyone else catch Peter Goettler’s comment to Powell that Bitcoin Symbol Guy is his son-in-law? #CatoMonCon pic.twitter.com/OPcgKz6sTb
— Nick Fogle (@nickfogle) September 8, 2022
Responding to Goettler’s question on whether “regulators may finally be strangling crypto,” Powell also suggested that Bitcoin proponents may be closer to home as he has “close family members” who argue the technology is still in its infancy. The Fed’s chairman reiterated the idea that unbacked crypto was mostly speculative wealth and lacked public support for payments.
Langalis, 22, raised thousands of dollars after his image went viral of him holding up a Bitcoin symbol at a congressional hearing. Five years later, many in the crypto space still refer to the act of ‘Buy Bitcoin’ as a parody and how the landscape has changed. The price of BTC was at $2,000 when Langalis appeared on camera, but has risen to $19,218 since publication.
Meanwhile, in an alternate timeline… pic.twitter.com/mlBWhfYHxa
— Jim (@JimBTC) July 13, 2017
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According to a wedding registry by Zola, Abigail Gottler married Langalis on April 30. It does not appear that the couple asked for Bitcoin as a gift.