Nashville
CNN
—
At one time, it would have been unthinkable that Donald Trump would be the headliner at a cryptocurrency conference.
As president, Trump declared Bitcoin “is not money,” criticized it as “highly unstable and unfounded,” and warned that cryptocurrencies help fuel illegal underground markets.
“The United States has only one real currency and it’s stronger than it’s ever been,” Trump wrote on Twitter in 2019. “It’s the US Dollar!”
But on Saturday, President Trump spoke at the cryptocurrency industry’s largest annual gathering here in Nashville not as a skeptic but as one of its most well-known supporters, the culmination of a complete about-face on the issue in the former president’s recent White House bid.
Despite crypto’s recent troubled history and his own past concerns, Trump has fully embraced the hype and promise of this emerging industry. His campaign is now accepting Bitcoin donations, raising about $4 million worth of contributions, according to a source familiar with his fundraising. He has denounced the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate the industry as a “war on crypto,” without acknowledging the massive fraud scheme that has shattered public confidence in digital currencies. And as president, he has vowed to make it easier for crypto mining companies to operate in the United States.
“Or other countries will get it,” Trump said in Wisconsin earlier this month.
Meanwhile, the bitcoin industry has backed Trump. Industry leaders and investors have donated millions of dollars to his campaign and political committees. They have supported his candidacy online and on Saturday offered him a platform to speak in person to the 20,000 attendees expected at this year’s Bitcoin Conference.
“A lot of these people consider themselves single-issue voters,” said Jacob Silverman, a technology writer and author of the best-selling book “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.” “When Trump or anyone else comes out in support of bitcoin, that’s important to them.”
President Trump announced several crypto-friendly policy pledges on Saturday, including firing Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler and promising to create a “national strategic bitcoin reserve,” all as part of his campaign promise to encourage the growth of the U.S. cryptocurrency industry.
“If cryptocurrency defines the future, I want it to be mined, minted and manufactured in America,” Trump said at the party convention, ahead of a more traditional campaign event in St. Cloud, Minnesota later in the day.
Since President Trump came out against Bitcoin in 2019, the volatile industry has faced further turmoil, most notably the arrest, trial and incarceration of Sam Bankman Freed, founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Once the face of the company whose celebrity sponsors included comedian Larry David and superstar quarterback Tom Brady, Bankman Freed was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March for running a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme through his company.
The Trump campaign has not spoken about what prompted the former president’s about-face on Bitcoin, nor has Trump addressed one of his main criticisms of the digital currency: that it has no practical, real-world applications other than as a highly speculative investment.
Trump campaign spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement to CNN that “cryptocurrency innovators and other companies in the tech sector are under attack from Democrats,” but that Trump “stands ready to encourage American leadership in this and other emerging technologies.”
Republican allies have also embraced Trump’s shift toward bitcoin, with Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina arguing at a conference on Friday that the former president understands attendees’ concerns about economic freedom that are common in the crypto community.
“Whether people love the dollar or they love digital assets, we want them to be in charge of their own decisions,” Scott said.
David Bailey, CEO of Bitcoin-focused media company BTC, said in a recent interview that industry leaders have been trying to woo Trump for months, educating his campaign on his policy agenda and the opportunities to sway voters on the issue.
Bailey acknowledged that their pitch also included “how much support we could get from the industry” by embracing cryptocurrency. Their conversations included a meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida earlier this summer.
“Everything accelerated at that point,” said Bailey, whose company hosted the annual conference where Trump spoke Saturday.
Indeed, support for Trump quickly followed: Billionaire cryptocurrency moguls Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss each pledged to donate $1 million worth of Bitcoin to Trump’s campaign. The Federal Election Commission has allowed political committees to accept Bitcoin as donations since 2014, with the value determined by the price at the time the donation is received.
Cryptocurrencies were also a hot topic at a recent fundraising spree in Silicon Valley that President Trump’s new running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, helped arrange. Billionaire tech entrepreneur David Sachs, a prominent cryptocurrency advocate, hosted the fundraiser at his home.
“I think one of the things that you heard a lot at that dinner was about the difficulties that business people are having under the Biden administration,” Sachs said on a recent episode of the All In podcast, which he co-hosts. “People in the crypto space just want a framework. They just want the government to tell them how to do things, and they can’t.”
Industry leaders and advocates have become increasingly politicized, helping to fund super PACs that overwhelmingly support Republicans over Democrats.
“It’s time for the crypto army to send a message to Washington,” Tyler Winklevoss wrote in a lengthy social media post endorsing Trump. “Attacking us is political suicide.”
Eric Sufer, a political adviser to major crypto companies, said crypto advocates who were pushed out of power in the wake of the Bankman Freed scandal are “seeking political recognition after years of isolation.”
“They believe this is their chance, and it’s hard to resist someone who’s telling them everything they want to hear,” Sufer said.
The cryptocurrency industry has been undergoing a resurgence since the collapse of FTX. After plummeting in 2022, Bitcoin’s price has recovered, hitting an all-time high in June. The excitement for this year’s Nashville event was palpable inside the Music City Center. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also spoke at the conference on Friday.
Yet even as more Americans learn about cryptocurrencies, many express concerns: Nearly nine in 10 adults have heard of cryptocurrencies, and of those, 75% don’t believe they are safe or trustworthy, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey.
But Trump’s outreach to crypto supporters fits into other efforts to find new supporters in unconventional places. Earlier this year, Trump addressed members at the Libertarian Party’s annual convention, promising to “support self-governance for the nation’s 50 million cryptocurrency holders.” There is a fair amount of overlap between the Libertarian Party and the crypto community.
Trump supporters weren’t hard to find at the Bitcoin Conference. John Fisher, a 61-year-old from Atlanta, has been personally investing in cryptocurrencies since 2021. He voted for Trump in 2020 and plans to vote again this year.
Still, he offered a clear view of Trump’s attempts to woo conference attendees.
“Any politician will stand for something if they want to get votes,” Fischer said.
Luke Broyles, a 25-year-old Michigan native who works in the cryptocurrency industry, is similarly concerned about President Trump’s latest plea, despite his recent comments.
“I think bitcoin advocates are pretty skeptical,” Broyles said, “and I think that’s justified. At the end of the day, people are investing in bitcoin because they don’t trust politicians.”
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
