NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Former president donald trump on Saturday he exposed his plans to embrace with all his heart cryptocurrency if he is elected to a second term, telling hundreds of supporters of the digital tokens that he wants the US to be a “bitcoin superpower” under his leadership.
In his speech in a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, the Republican presidential candidate promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a bitcoin “strategic reserve” using the currency the government currently holds.
He also promised to remove the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler get elected and implement a crypto advisory board, provoking the crowd by asking attendees if anyone would like to participate.
“We will have regulations, but from now on the rules will be written by people who love their industry, not hate it,” he said.
Trump’s keynote speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference showed how his stance on cryptocurrency has radically changed over time.
He hasn’t always been a fan of cryptocurrencies, writing on social media in 2019 that their “value is highly volatile and based in the air.”
He has embraced digital currency in recent years, and in May his campaign began accepting cryptocurrency donations.
Throughout the nearly 50-minute speech, Trump repeatedly sought to contrast his support for cryptocurrency with the Biden administration. efforts to regulate the industry, telling the crowd that the federal government was “blocking their path.” Trump said he wanted cryptocurrency “mined, minted and manufactured” in the United States.
The former president appealed to bitcoin fans by pointing to seizures of the digital token by US authorities.
“They took that away from you,” he said. “So, as we take steps to transform this vast wealth into a permanent national asset to benefit all Americans, today I repeat my pledge to commute Ross Ulbricht’s sentence.”
Ulbricht created the underground drug-selling website Silk Road, but was sentenced to life in prison after a judge held him responsible for six overdose deaths linked to his website. Some of the nearly 800 attendees who gathered in downtown Nashville to hear Trump speak wore “Free Ross Day One” hats, honoring Ulbricht’s prison sentence.
Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn called Trump’s announcement of a strategic bitcoin reserve a “historic moment.”
Trump’s comments came a day after independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke at the conference and also presented the launch of a strategic bitcoin reserve.
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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.
