Former president Donald Trump outlined a plan to turbocharge crypto progress and make the US a crypto mining powerhouse in his keynote tackle to the 2024 Nashville Bitcoin Conference on Saturday.
Trump introduced that if elected, he would create a strategic bitcoin reserve within the US. “It will be the policy of my administration to keep 100 percent of all bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires in the future … as a core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile,” he stated.
Right now, the US authorities owns greater than 210,000 bitcoins that have been seized by way of unlawful operations like the net darkish market Silk Road and the ponzi scheme BitConnect. It’s value roughly $14 billion at time of writing.
This transfer confirmed rumors unfold by bitcoin fans who’re hopeful that endorsement of a reserve from Trump may bolster the value of the cryptocurrency.
Trump additionally introduced plans to nominate a bitcoin and crypto advisory council, whose process can be to “design transparent regulatory guidance to the benefit of your industry” within the first 100 days of his subsequent presidency. He stated he wished the US to change into the “crypto capital of the world.”
Trump additionally pledged to create a framework for guaranteeing the secure enlargement of stablecoins, “allowing us to extend the dominance of the USD to other places around the world,” and doubled down on his vow to scrap any effort to create a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or digital greenback, saying “there will never be a CBDC while I’m president of the United States.”
“I will always defend the right to self-custody,” he advised the exultant crowd. What acquired maybe the most important cheer was a day one promise to fireside Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler.
“The moment I am sworn in, the persecution stops and the weaponization against your industry ends,” he stated, name-checking Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts because the business’s sworn enemy.
He promised to make rules pleasant to crypto mining operations within the US, so employees wouldn’t need to “move to China.” Trump promised, once more, to free Ross Ulbricht, imprisoned for all times for his involvement with on-line underground market Silk Road, the place individuals may purchase objects like unlawful medicine earlier than it was shut down in 2013.
The crowd anticipated the bitcoin strategic reserve announcement. On July 22, Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming posted “Big things … in store this week” on X, two days earlier than Fox Business reported she would “announce legislation for a strategic bitcoin reserve” on the convention.
Lummis appeared earlier than the gang simply after Trump walked off to announce a “present to President Donald Trump”: the bitcoin reserve invoice she’d been drafting.
“This is our Louisiana Purchase moment,” she stated, elaborating that the invoice would take “the bitcoin President Trump just mentioned and pull it into the reserve—[and] that’s only the beginning.”
“Over five years, the United States will assemble 1 million bitcoin,” she added, “Five percent of the world’s bitcoin, and it will be held for a minimum of 20 years and can be used for one purpose—reduce our debt.”