Trump calls for US to be ‘crypto capital of the planet’ in appeal to Nashville bitcoin conference

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday laid out his plans to wholeheartedly embrace cryptocurrency if elected for a second term, telling hundreds of cheering supporters of the digital tokens that he wants the U.S. to be a “bitcoin superpower” under his leadership.

In his keynote address at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, the Republican presidential nominee promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and create a bitcoin “strategic reserve” using the currency that the government currently holds.

He also promised to remove Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler if elected and implement a crypto advisory council, teasing the crowd by asking attendees if anyone wanted to join.

“We will have regulations, but from now on the rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry,” he said.

Trump’s keynote address at the Bitcoin 2024 conference showed how radically his position on cryptocurrency has changed over time.

He was not always a fan of cryptocurrencies, writing on social media in 2019 that their “value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”

He has embraced the digital currency in recent years, and in May, his campaign began accepting donations in cryptocurrency.

Throughout the nearly 50-minute speech, Trump repeatedly sought to contrast his support of cryptocurrency to the Biden’s administration efforts to regulate the industry, telling the crowd that the federal government was “blocking your way.” Trump said he wanted cryptocurrency “mined, minted and made” in the United States.

The former president appealed to bitcoin fans by pointing to U.S. law enforcement seizures of the digital token.

“They took it away from you,” he said. “So, as I take steps to transform that vast wealth into a permanent national asset to benefit all Americans, today I repeat my promise to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht.”

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 flocked to downtown Nashville to hear Trump speak wore “Free Ross Day One” hats, in a nod to Ulbricht’s prison sentence.

Tennessee’s U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn called Trump’s announcement of a bitcoin strategic reserve a “historic moment.”

Trump’s remarks came a day after independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addressed the conference and also pitched launching a strategic bitcoin reserve.

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Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.