- author, Brandon Livesay
- role, BBC News
Speaking at one of the biggest crypto events of the year, Donald Trump said that if he is re-elected president, he will fire the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on his first day there.
Trump was delivering a keynote speech at Bitcoin 2024, a gathering of industry heavyweights in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday.
Republican presidential candidates have used the event to rally support among voters and drum up money from the tech industry.
Cryptocurrency has become a political battleground for the Republican Party, with President Trump claiming that Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris are “anti-crypto.”
The crowd erupted in excitement when Trump declared that he would fire Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission appointed by President Joe Biden, on his first day in office, prompting the crowd to cheer loudly and chant “Trump.”
The SEC has indicted “crypto king” Sam Bankman Freed, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing billions of dollars from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
In a roughly 45-minute speech, Trump outlined his thoughts on the cryptocurrency industry if he wins the election in November. He said he would make the United States the cryptocurrency capital of the world. His support for the industry marks a 180-degree turn from his 2021 comments to Fox Business, where he called Bitcoin a “scam” that would affect the value of the U.S. dollar.
Trump told event attendees that the U.S. government will hold 100% of all Bitcoin currently held or acquired, adding that he would call it the “national Bitcoin stockpile.”
The former president also said he would “immediately appoint a Presidential Advisory Commission on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies.”
Speaking about the electricity required to mine cryptocurrencies, he said, “It takes a huge amount of electricity,” adding that power plants are built “to do the mining” and “it uses fossil fuels.”
Trump’s campaign has seen growing support among some technology leaders in recent months, including Tesla founder Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who has endorsed Trump, as have the cryptocurrency moguls, the Winklevoss twins, who attended Saturday’s speech.
Trump said his campaign was accepting cryptocurrency donations, saying it had received $25 million (£20 million) in donations in the two months since allowing crypto transactions, but did not disclose how much of the payments were in crypto.
In his speech, President Trump framed cryptocurrency regulation as a partisan issue and said the Biden administration is “anti-cryptocurrency.”
Trump’s speech was attended by many Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Tim Scott and Tommy Tuberville, as well as former Republican presidential candidate and Trump ally Vivek Ramaswami.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Democratic Senators Wiley Nickels and Ro Khanna also spoke at the event.
Earlier, at Bitcoin 2024, Democratic Congressman Nickel said Kamala Harris has a “forward-thinking approach to digital assets and blockchain technology.”
