Trump says he'll fire SEC Chair Gensler and create strategic bitcoin reserve if elected: Bitcoin 2024
Quick Take
- Donald Trump, in a keynote address to the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, promised to fire SEC chair Gary Gensler and stop the US from selling its bitcoin holdings, creating a “strategic bitcoin reserve,” if elected in November.
- Trump also promised to end “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” and another anti-crypto policies in order to support the domestic digital asset industry.
- Bitcoin fell in price to about $66,600 during the speech before recovering shortly after to $68,000.
Donald Trump further outlined his crypto platform on stage at Nashville's Bitcoin 2024 conference in an address on Saturday after taking the stage an hour after his address was scheduled to begin.
During Trump's speech, which mainly covered a wide range of general campaign-related policies, the former President also outlined more specific promises when it comes to bitcoin and the wider crypto industry.
In a remark that led to a strong outburst of cheers from the audience, surprising Trump, the candidate announced that he plans to replace SEC Chair Gary Gensler if elected. Gensler is a common enemy of the crypto industry, which generally sees his policies as unnecessarily punitive towards crypto companies as Gensler views most digital assets to be illegally-issued securities.
Trump also announced that he will stop the US from selling any of the 213,000 bitcoin, worth nearly $14.5 billion, that the government holds from prior enforcement actions, according to data from Arkham.
"It will be the policy of my administration...to keep 100% of all the bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires into the future," Trump announced. "This will serve in effect as the core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile...It's been taken away from you."
Trump also reiterated promises he had made in the past to commute Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's sentence and stop the U.S. government from further developing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Trump also spoke favorably about developing stablecoins in the United States and supporting the bitcoin mining industry.
"I will be the pro-innovation and pro-bitcoin candidate that America needs and that our citizens deserve," Trump promised to close his speech.
Bitcoin's price fell during the speech to reach $66,600, nearly $3,000 less than its daily high of about $69,400. The price recovered shortly following the speech's end to about $68,500, according to The Block's Bitcoin Price Page.
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