Donald Trump is courting the votes of cryptocurrency investors by promising to make the US a 'Bitcoin superpower' with far less regulation.
The former president gave a speech to the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville on Saturday and offered the crowd a high-profile government scalp.
"On day one I will fire Gary Gensler," he told the crowd, speaking of the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman.
Trump received so much applause that he repeated his pledge, adding, "I didn't know he was that unpopular".
Gensler has waged a fierce enforcement crusade against the underregulated currency market.
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Trump said he would be replaced with someone friendly to crypto investors, and he would create a crypto advisory council to design regulatory guidance.
The Bitcoin price crashed to less than $67,000 as soon as Trump started speaking, but rallied to $69,000 over the next hour when investors heard his pro-crypto speech.
Trump made numerous promises to make the U.S. the world's "crypto capital", in contrast with President Joe Biden's efforts to strongly regulate it.
"I pledge to the Bitcoin community, the day I take the oath of office, Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris's anti-crypto crusade will be over. It will end. It will be done," he said.
"The moment I'm sworn in, the persecution stops and the weaponization ends against your industry."
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He warned that if Vice President Harris won every one of you will be gone. They will be vicious. They will be ruthless. They will do things that you wouldn't believe.
"Kamala is worse than Joe, she is a radical, lunatic, she is against crypto. Now a little honeymoon period is going on, he added.
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Trump panders to crypto investors to win votes, reverses his attitude towards crypto
However, Trump's embracing of cryptocurrency is a sharp turn from just three years ago when he railed against it. Even top crypto boosters admit the former president is 'pandering' to them to win votes.
"Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam,' Trump said in 2021, calling it 'another currency competing against the dollar".
'I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,' he said in 2019, linking it to drug sales and criminals.
'We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever. It is called the United States Dollar!'
However wealthy donors, and Trump's desire to be president again no matter what, fueled a road to Damascus conversion he hopes will give him an edge.
In Nashville, he tried to sell himself as "the crypto president" in contrast to Harris, who allegedly privately told a donor "Bitcoin is money for criminals".
'This is the steel industry of 100 years ago,' Trump claimed.
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"If we don't do it, China and others are going to be doing it. Let's do it right. If crypto is going to define the future, I want to be mined, minted, and made in the USA.
"It's not going to be made anywhere else. And if bitcoin is going to the moon, as we say… I want America to be the nation that leads the way, and that's what's going to happen. So you're going to be very happy with me."
Trump outlined his plan to create a framework for the expansion of stable coins, and promised to keep all the crypto the US Government owned.
He would then expand those holdings to create a 'strategic national Bitcoin stockpile'.
'America's laws are too unclear, and too tough, and too angry and too stiff,' he said.
Trump would also end Treasury Department efforts to create a central bank digital currency, which would compete with Bitcoin and others.
'There will never be a CBDC while I'm president of the United States,' he said.
Trump's about-face on cryptocurrency followed investors poring tens of millions into his campaign coffers, and Americans sending $4 million in crypto donations.
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who famously sued Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea for Facebook, each pledged $1 million to his campaign.
They each also sent $250,000 the Elon Musk's America PAC, which funnels money to the Trump campaign.
Tyler Winklevoss, in a 1,417-word rant on Twitter, claimed the Biden Administration "openly declared war against crypto" and endorsed Trump for president.
'It’s time for the crypto army to send a message to Washington. That attacking us is political suicide,' he wrote.
He claimed Biden "weaponized multiple government agencies to bully, harass, and sue the good actors in our industry in an effort to destroy it."
"This administration's actions have been nothing short of an unprecedented abuse of power wielded entirely for twisted political gain at the complete expense of innovation, the American taxpayer, and the American economy."
Winklevoss and other crypto boosters also got into a fight with Harris after she declined an invitation to speak at Saturday's event in Nashville.
"The Biden-Harris Administration wages all-out war on the crypto industry for four years," he wrote on Twitter.
"Despite all of this, Kamala is still invited to the The Bitcoin Conf[erence] in Nashville and given a chance to speak to our industry and reset the relationship.
"What does she do? She declines. She can’t even take the first step and show up to start mending fences.
"Our industry won't forget this. We will show no mercy in November."
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