The Cryptocurrency, Bitcoins, and Wall Street: The Case for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to End the Debt Problem of the United States
The main speaker at the conference in Nashville is Donald Trump, who just days ago appeared via video to announce he would make his country’s use of cryptocurrencies legal.
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. At the time of writing, it’s worth about 14 billion dollars.
The move shows that the rumors of a reserve from Trump could bolster the prices of the criptocurrency.
He told the crowd that he would defend the right to self-custody. What got perhaps the biggest cheer was a day one promise to fire Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler.
“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. Two days before Fox Business reported that Cynthia Lummis was announcing legislation at the conference for a strategic bitcoin reserve, she posted on X that there were big things in store this week.
Trump gave a present to the crowd just after Lummis appeared, which was the bill she had been drafting.
She said that the bill would take the currency and pull it into the reserve and that was only the beginning.
“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.”
The people line up to take their picture next to a cardboard cutout of the former President who had a bloodied face after an assassination attempt. There are two copies of the cutout on top of a tower of mining equipment. Superimposed over his clenched hand is a big bitcoin.
Free speech looms large in the belief system of a trio who appear the most visibly in support of Trump. 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.
It’s the first major party nominee to accept donations in digital currency, says the candidate. As of July 25, he’s received more than $4 million worth. Nearly two million came from Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, twin founders of crypto trading platform Gemini, who Trump calls out during his Bitcoin 2024 speech, saying they “look like male models…with a big, beautiful brain.” According to Jesse Powell, who is the chief executive officer of a cryptocurrencies exchange called Kraken, he donated $1 million to Trump mostly in ether. They’re courting Trump back after courting the industry.
This is not a Trump rally, the conference organizers at BTC Media emphasized to me. If it’s any kind of rally, it’s a bitcoin one, I’m assured. Trump held a dinner in Nashville hosted by David Bailey, where he held $844,000 per seat. 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 posted on July 23 that she would be able to reset the democrat positioning on the fastest growing voter block in the country.
Harris didn’t 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 is logical based on what attendees say their voting plans are for. 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.
