Former president Donald Trump outlined a plan to turbocharge crypto progress and make the US a crypto mining powerhouse in his keynote handle to the 2024 Nashville Bitcoin Convention on Saturday.
Trump introduced that if elected, he would create a strategic bitcoin reserve within the US. “Will probably be the coverage of my administration to maintain 100% of all bitcoin the US authorities presently holds or acquires sooner or later … as a core of the strategic nationwide bitcoin stockpile,” he mentioned.
Proper now, the US authorities owns greater than 210,000 bitcoins that have been seized through unlawful operations like the web darkish market Silk Street and the ponzi scheme BitConnect. It’s value roughly $14 billion at time of writing.
This transfer confirmed rumors unfold by bitcoin lovers who’re hopeful that endorsement of a reserve from Trump may bolster the worth of the cryptocurrency.
Trump additionally introduced plans to nominate a bitcoin and crypto advisory council, whose job can be to “design clear regulatory steerage to the advantage of your trade” within the first 100 days of his subsequent presidency. He mentioned he wished the US to develop into the “crypto capital of the world.”
Trump additionally pledged to create a framework for making certain the secure enlargement of stablecoins, “permitting us to increase the dominance of the USD to different locations all over the world,” and doubled down on his vow to scrap any effort to create a Central Financial institution Digital Foreign money (CBDC) or digital greenback, saying “there’ll by no means be a CBDC whereas I’m president of the US.”
“I’ll all the time defend the correct to self-custody,” he advised the exultant crowd. What acquired maybe the most important cheer was a day one promise to fireside Securities and Trade Fee chair Gary Gensler.
“The second I’m sworn in, the persecution stops and the weaponization towards your trade ends,” he mentioned, name-checking Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts because the trade’s sworn enemy.
He promised to make rules pleasant to crypto mining operations within the US, so staff wouldn’t must “transfer to China.” Trump promised, once more, to free Ross Ulbricht, imprisoned for all times for his involvement with on-line underground market Silk Street, the place folks may purchase gadgets like unlawful medication earlier than it was shut down in 2013.
The group anticipated the bitcoin strategic reserve announcement. On July 22, Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming posted “Huge issues … in retailer this week” on X, two days earlier than Fox Enterprise reported she would “announce laws for a strategic bitcoin reserve” on the convention.
Lummis appeared earlier than the group simply after Trump walked off to announce a “current to President Donald Trump”: the bitcoin reserve invoice she’d been drafting.
“That is our Louisiana Buy second,” she mentioned, elaborating that the invoice would take “the bitcoin President Trump simply talked about and pull it into the reserve—[and] that’s solely the start.”
“Over 5 years, the US will assemble 1 million bitcoin,” she added, “5 % of the world’s bitcoin, and it will likely be held for at least 20 years and can be utilized for one function—scale back our debt.”
