NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to make America the world leader in bitcoin and other digital currencies if elected, comparing the cryptocurrency to “the steel industry of 100 years ago.”
Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd at the annual Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Trump promised to ensure America becomes “the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.”
Trump described himself as a crypto advocate in contrast to the Biden administration and other Democrats, who he said had been unfriendly to their cause.
Trump said — to rapturous applause from the Nashville crowd — that if elected, he would fire current Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, who the crypto world has seen as a key opponent in government because of his agency. rulings on digital tokens and lawsuits against bitcoin exchanges.
“I will appoint a chairman of the SEC who will build the future, not block the future,” Trump said.
His embrace of crypto comes amid high-profile endorsements from bitcoin advocates, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twin brothers best known for suing Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook’s creation and founding the exchange Gemini cryptocurrencies.
Trump’s remarks will further cement his growing alliance with other right-leaning figures in the tech world, although the novelty of his appearance at the conference was not lost on him. While he hailed the audience as “geniuses,” he admitted that he was still learning about crypto.
“Most people have no idea what the hell it is,” he said. “So what happens when everyone figures it out? That will be something.”
Trump offered a proposal to create a national “stockpile” of bitcoin that he said would serve as a “permanent national asset,” though he did not provide many details.
The idea of creating a strategic crypto reserve has quickly spread among bitcoin supporters. On Friday, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also proposed the creation of a bitcoin reserve, saying he would direct the Treasury to buy 4 million bitcoins, which at today’s prices would equate to roughly $272 billion.
Shortly after Trump’s comments, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said she would introduce a bill to create the reserve.
However, the price of bitcoin fell slightly in the wake of Trump’s comments on Saturday, perhaps reflecting crypto traders’ unmet expectations for a more definitive commitment on the reserve idea from the presidential candidate.
While the Bitcoin Conference is officially apolitical, Trump’s speech marked an event whose political panelists were Republican-leaning, including four Republican senators and three GOP Senate candidates.
The only Democrat elected, California Rep. Ro Khanna, spoke early Saturday and criticized the trend within his party to further strengthen traditional financial centers.
“I thought the Democrats were against monopoly power. … We don’t want the banks and the Fed to have a monopoly on fast payments,” Khanna said at a panel on Saturday.
Shortly after his remarks this morning, Bitcoin Magazine reported that a group of Democratic representatives and candidates had sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee urging party leaders to be more supportive of cryptocurrencies.
In addition to Khanna, the letter’s signatories included representatives in purple districts in critical states like North Carolina and Arizona.
The “hostility” of the current administration, the signatories said, does not reflect the “progressive, forward-looking and inclusive values of our Party.”
“A refreshed ticket driver represents an opportunity to change this perception,” they wrote.
In a follow-up interview with NBC News at the conference, Khanna said positive engagement with the crypto community would be consistent with Democrats’ desire to be “the party of the future.”
“They are passionate, they are active on social media and they are mobilized,” Khanna said. “And it’s a community that will vote.”
Conference organizers say Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris declined an invitation to appear at the conference. Organizers declined to comment further on the matter, although conference chairman David Bailey did criticized Harris‘ absence in X. Harris’ campaign has not commented.
In an interview with NBC News on Friday, Bailey said that despite Harris not showing up at the conference, the window had not closed on Democrats’ ability to gain support from the crypto community.
“There’s a whole progressive case for bitcoin,” he said. While that reasoning may not have gotten as much attention, Bailey said, “my intuition is, over the next four years, it will.”
On Saturday, the Financial Times reported that Harris had approached major crypto companies seeking a “reset” of relations, citing unnamed sources.
Bailey said it will eventually become a political imperative for all political parties to engage with bitcoin supporters as a political bloc.
“It’s not too late – in fact, everyone will have to come to terms with it,” he said. “They won’t be viable otherwise.”
Outside the conference early Saturday, pro-Trump bitcoin supporters made their presence known.
Chad Kozman, an Ohio resident, wore a “Free Ross/Vote Trump” shirt, referring to the community’s desire to commute Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s life sentence on drug and money laundering charges, something that Trump has promised he would.
Kozman told NBC News that while Trump’s overtures to the crypto community were opportunistic, it was also a sign that the community had matured beyond its individualistic roots into a voting pool to be reckoned with.
“For the bitcoin community, it’s been a really hard road to get people to see the benefits of collectivization and pooling,” he said.