Former President Donald Trump vowed to make the U.S. dominant in cryptocurrency, oust the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and create a national reserve of Bitcoin.
During a speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville on Saturday, he said under another Trump administration, the U.S. would become the "crypto capital" of the world and a "Bitcoin superpower," where the token will be mined.
"I pledge to the Bitcoin community, the day I take the oath of office, Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris's anti-crypto crusade will be over. It will end. It will be done," he said. "The moment I'm sworn in, the persecution stops and the weaponization ends against your industry."
He also promised to fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler "on day one" and appoint a new chair, eliciting loud applause from the audience. "I didn't know he was that unpopular," a surprised Trump said.
In addition, he said he would appoint a Bitcoin and crypto advisory council to design regulatory guidance, while also ordering the Treasury Department and other federal agencies to cease efforts toward development of a central bank digital currency.
"There will never be a CBDC while I'm president of the United States," Trump said, adding that he will defend the right for self custody and create a framework for the expansion of stable coins, which will extend the dominance of US dollar.
And despite telling Fox Business in 2021 that "Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam" and is "another currency competing against the dollar," he said Saturday that bitcoin isn't a threat to the dollar.
Trump also promised to keep 100% of all the Bitcoin that the federal government holds, which will serve as the core of a "strategic national Bitcoin stockpile."
His embrace of the crypto sector comes after dismissing it for years. In addition to his remarks in 2021, he said in 2019 that he's "not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”
President Joe Biden's exit from the presidential race raised hopes that a lighter regulatory regime would follow, under either a Republican or Democratic administration.
The price of bitcoin has come off its highs in March, when it topped $73,000. But after dipping below $60,000 earlier this month, bitcoin has surged about 17% in the past few weeks to edge closer to $70,000 again.
Meanwhile, advisers to Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign have been contacting key players in the crypto industry to develop relationships that could eventually inform a regulatory framework while sending a message that Democrats are “pro-business, responsible business,” sources told the Financial Times.
The presidential election has emerged a major fault line dividing Silicon Valley, with venture capital partners Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowtiz as well as the Winklevoss backing Trump.
On the other side, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, and SV Angel’s Ron Conway are among the other big-name techies that have publicly endorsed Harris.
