- Donald Trump has said he wants to make the United States the global capital of cryptocurrency.
- President Trump made the promise at the annual cryptocurrency conference, Bitcoin 2024.
- President Trump also said he would fire SEC Commissioner Gary Gensler and roll back federal cryptocurrency regulations.
Former President Donald Trump wants you to know that he now loves Bitcoin.
Speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville on Saturday, President Trump called cryptocurrency the “steel industry of 100 years ago.”
“I think we're just getting started,” Trump said at a meeting of cryptocurrency industry leaders. “I think we're just getting started. In just 15 years, bitcoin has grown from just an idea posted anonymously on an internet message board to the ninth most valuable asset in the world.”
Trump said he would develop a plan to “ensure that the United States becomes the cryptocurrency capital of the planet and the global Bitcoin superpower.”
According to him, the plan includes removing SEC Chairman Gary Gensler from his position, creating a Presidential Advisory Council on Cryptocurrency, blocking the creation of a central digital currency bank, and eliminating federal regulation of cryptocurrencies in a move known as “Checkpoint 2.0.”
President Trump also pledged to store 100% of the bitcoin owned by the federal government (most of which has been seized by law enforcement) as a “national strategic bitcoin reserve.”
Trump's views on Bitcoin appear to have come full circle: During his presidency in 2019, he called the cryptocurrency “highly unstable and unfounded.”
“The United States has only one real currency and it is the strongest it has ever been,” Trump wrote on what was then called Twitter. “And that is the US Dollar!”
But Trump is now a real crypto fan and has garnered support from major crypto investors: Earlier this month, Gemini co-founders and crypto investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss donated $250,000 to a pro-Trump super PAC.
Following the assassination attempt on President Trump earlier this month, the price of bitcoin soared, hitting a record high of $62,000 as investors began betting that Trump would return to power in November.
One of Trump's opponents, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also spoke at the conference on Friday and alluded to Trump's stockpile plans.
“I'm hearing that President Trump may announce plans tomorrow to build a Fort Knox for Bitcoin and authorize the U.S. government to purchase 1 million Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset,” Kennedy said. “I applaud the announcement.”
But Kennedy said he plans to go further: He said he would immediately sign an executive order directing the U.S. Treasury to purchase Bitcoin every day and add it to the government's current token until the country has built up a reserve of 4 million Bitcoin.
According to Coinbase, 1 million Bitcoins is about $69 billion. 4 billion Bitcoins is about $276 billion.
Trump also used the opportunity to attack his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for her stance on cryptocurrencies: “She is very against cryptocurrencies,” he said. However, Harris' position on cryptocurrencies is still unclear; she has not made any clear public comments on the issue.
The former president also promised in his address to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, who is serving a life sentence for running Silk Road, a dark web site used to sell drugs and other black market goods from 2011 to 2013.
