Cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrencies in the United States: a Bitcoin strategic reserve announcement from former US President Donald Trump, Cynthia Lummis, tweeted on July 22
Trump also pledged to create a framework for ensuring the safe expansion 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 dollar, saying “there will never be a CBDC while I’m president of the United States.”
Right now, the US government owns more than 210,000 bitcoins that were seized via illegal operations like the online dark market Silk Road and the ponzi scheme BitConnect. It’s worth approximately $14 billion at time of writing.
This move confirmed rumors spread by bitcoin enthusiasts who are hopeful that endorsement of a reserve from Trump could bolster the price of the cryptocurrency.
He told the crowd that he would always defend the right to self-custody. Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, was promised to be fired on the first day.
“The moment I am sworn in, the persecution stops and the weaponization against your industry ends,” he said, name-checking Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as the industry’s sworn enemy.
The crowd expected the bitcoin strategic reserve announcement. On July 22, Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming posted “Big things … in store this week” on X, two days before Fox Business reported she would “announce legislation for a strategic bitcoin reserve” at the conference.
Lummis appeared before the crowd just after Trump walked off to announce a “present to President Donald Trump”: the bitcoin reserve bill she’d been drafting.
The bill would take the digital currency President Trump mentioned, pull it into the reserve and much more, she said.
“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.”
People line up to take their picture next to a cardboard cutout of former President Donald Trump; fist in the air, blood on his face post assassination attempt. Above them a second copy of the cutout rotates atop a tower of bitcoin mining equipment. He is holding a large amount ofBitcoin over his clenched hand.
The belief system of three people who seem most in favor of Trump is based on free speech. Wearing matching red shirts with Trump’s fist pump photo, American flag knee socks, and MAGA (not MBGA) hats, the trio, whose X handles are @CryptoPatriot, @CryptoViking, and @MAGAPaulie, tell me their mission of “flipping” voters to Trump is all but moot at the bitcoin conference.
The presidential candidate claims to be the first “major party nominee to accept donations in bitcoin and crypto.” He received more than four million dollars on July 25. Almost 2 million came from Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the twins who founded a trading platform with a big, beautiful brain that Trump said they looked like male models. Another big chunk came from CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, Jesse Powell, who wrote that he donated $1 million to Trump—“mostly” in Ether. Trump is courting the industry, and they’re courting him back.
The conference organizers at BTC Media told me that this is not a Trump rally. If it’s any kind of rally, it’s a bitcoin one, I’m assured. Trump held a donor dinner in Nashville, which was hosted by David Bailey. But conference organizers say President Joe Biden was invited to speak at the conference, and then Vice President Kamala Harris when he dropped out of the race and endorsed her. Bailey said she would be smart to reset democrat positioning on the fastest growing voter block in the country.
Harris did not attend. Instead Trump, and Independent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. represent. Of the 10 politicians on the conference’s speaker list, only two were Democrats.
The lineup makes sense, based on what the attendees say their voting plans are for in four years. One attendee describes the Democratic party to me as dangerously approaching “communism.” Others express distrust over the left-leaning media, asking whether I think Trump’s shooting was staged (a conspiracy theory that’s crossed party lines), and who directs what I write.