The presidential candidate also said he will end Operation Chokepoint 2.0.
On the final day of Bitcoin2024, Donald Trump claimed he will end Gary Gensler’s rule at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the notoriously anti-crypto government agency.
“I will fire Gary Gensler on Day One,” he said to a resounding applause from conference attendees. “I didn’t know he was so disliked.”
In a highly anticipated keynote speech with people clamoring on the streets when he arrived, Trump had plenty of words of praise for Bitcoin, and the need to make it an integral part of his economic program if he becomes president.
He also singled out the Biden administration’s Operation Chokepoint 2.0, an alleged concerted effort from private banking and government officials to rein in the industry.
Notably, Bitcoin did not budge as the presidential nominee laid out his intentions, and ideas relating to the industry, trading for $67,774. The asset has been on an upward trajectory in the past two weeks, however, especially after news surfaced that Trump would speak at the conference.
Trump’s speech comes one day after independent presidential nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed at the same conference he would sign an executive order to buy 550 Bitcoin daily for a year, building a strategic reserve of 4 million BTC.
According to Arkham Intelligence, the U.S. government already owns 213,000 BTC or $15 billion.
Although rumors had surfaced that Trump would announce a Bitcoin reserve strategy, he alluded to the 213,000 Bitcoin already in hands of the government.
Under his presidency, the U.S would adopt a holder mentality (referring to the idea that Bitcoiners always hold their coins). “You never sell your bitcoin,” he said, promising to never sell off the BTC in hands of the U.S.
Additionally, Trump sees stablecoins as not inherently anti-dollar.
Trump has been the unequivocal mainstay of Bitcoin2024, and he comes as a welcome fresh air after the current administration’s intensely anti-crypto stance. Many conference attendees now hope that with a potential Trump government, the digital asset industry will receive the regulatory clarity it has been pushing for in the past years.
The political arena has been heating up when regarding Bitcoin. Trump has taken a surprising 180 turn, going from skeptic in 2021 to believer the moment the campaign trail began. He claims he will commute the sentence of incarcerated Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht, and wants to keep Bitcoin mining in the country.
Trump’s explicitly pro-crypto position has forced the hand of Democrats, who now are warming up to cryptocurrencies—after an overtly negative stance. Just yesterday, the members of the Democratic Party nudged the DNC to adopt a more pro crypto stance and roll back the aggression against the industry.
Although some are skeptical that Trump will follow through, the fact that he appeared at Bitcoin2024 with a favorable stance towards the asset is already a step in the right direction.
