Over the weekend, former U.S. President and current Republican nominee Donald Trump and a number of lawmakers spoke at the Bitcoin Nashville conference. The biggest piece of news everyone has been talking about was Trump and Sen. Cynthia Lummis' proposals to create a strategic reserve for Bitcoin, but the event also served as Sen. Tim Scott's entry into actual crypto discussion.
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BTC conference
The narrative
Lawmakers – and Donald Trump, who of course is hoping to regain the presidency this November – took the stage through the Bitcoin Nashville conference last week to try and appeal to BTC holders for votes or funds.
Why it matters
This is the first major U.S. election where crypto is getting attention from lawmakers and candidates. While it's still not totally clear whether there truly is a significant mass of single-issue crypto voters, what is clear is lawmakers are going to continue to appeal to this crowd over the next few months.
Breaking it down
First up: Former President Donald Trump spoke, saying if he's elected he'll work to appoint friendlier regulators, but his biggest promise may be his suggestion that the U.S. would create a strategic bitcoin stockpile, a promise echoed by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) who introduced a bill this week that would support that goal.
"And so as the final part of my plan today, I am announcing that if I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration, United States of America, to keep 100% of all the bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future, we'll keep 100%," Trump said. "I hope you do well, please. This will serve, in effect, as the core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile."
The former president also acknowledged that "most of the bitcoin currently held by the United States government was obtained through law enforcement action."
"You know that they took it from you. Let's take that guy's life. Let's take his family, his house, his bitcoin. We'll turn it into bitcoin. It's been taken away from you, because that's where we're going now. That's where this country is going to – fascist regime. And so as I take steps to transform that vast wealth into a permanent national asset to benefit all Americans," he said.
The proposals – both from Trump and Lummis – still leave some questions unanswered at the moment, but in a broader sense, they're more just messages to the bitcoin community at the moment, that if Trump becomes president again (and/or if Republicans become the majority party in the Senate), he'll be friendlier toward the industry than in his first term.
Trump also shouted out Vivek Ramaswamy, who briefly also vied for the Republican ticket.
"I've heard from Vivek 175 million people in some form, are involved with this world of crypto and Bitcoin and all of the others, 175 million," he said. "So when they heard that, they said, 'Let's be nice to them, at least until after the election.'"
You can read a partial transcript of Trump's remarks here.
As my colleague Jesse Hamilton reported, this event also served as Sen. Tim Scott's (R-S.C.) first substantial introduction to the crypto community. The Senate Banking Committee's top Republican, Scott – another former contender for the presidency – will become the committee's chair if the GOP retakes the Senate, putting him in charge of legislation that could affect the Securities and Exchange Commission and crypto regulation more broadly. He did not introduce any specific policy ideas during his remarks on stage.
