Another great achievement for bitcoin and crypto has happened today. President Trump made an impressive pro-bitcion and pro-crypto speech at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville. The speech was full of substance, promise for brighter future, and encouragement for innovation. Whatever topic bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts wanted to hear from a political leader were all addressed in this speech. I highly recommend to watch the speech. While Trump promise protecting and growing the bitcoin and crypto industry in the US, he also showed great deal of knowledge about the technology, what has been happening, challenges, and shared a plan to make things better. This presidential election just became interesting. Trump campaign might the first one that officially introduced a bitcoin and crypto policy plan, and really good one it seems.
I actually thought Trump was going to be a pro-bitcoin president first time around. However that wasn't the case. Trump never hesitated to speak up against bitcoin in the past. It seems in the past Trump took bitcion as competition to USD. Today's speech shows he came into realization that bitcoin and USD are not necessarily in competition against each other. They can coexist just fine. Any problems USD may have, has nothing to do with bitcoin really. Bitcoin may actually help fiat currencies to become stronger if right policies are implemented. There have been many instances in the past when many people embraced bitcoin and crypto after having a proper understanding of what they are and what they do. There was a time when Michael Saylor also tweeted anti-bitcoin comments. Look at him now. By the way, another great speech at the conference was by Michael Saylor. I recommend watching it as well.
From the very start Trump knew what kind of crowd he was addressing to and he made sure all the concerns of bitcoiners were mentioned. Crowd went crazy and chanted "Trump, Trump, Trump" in the middle of the speech when Trump said he will fire Gary Gensler as head of SEC. It was so noticeable that he had to repeat the statement again. Trump showed clear understanding of what has been happening in crypto world in the last few year, and how SEC has been hostile to the industry and put in all the efforts to slow down the progress of bitcoin and crypto in the US. By now everybody knows how bad SEC's actions have been towards crypto. It hasn't stopped it. It would never be able to destroy bitcoin. But powerful agencies like this can slow down the progess, slow down the adoption, and slow down the innovation significantly. And that is what SEC under leadership of Gensler have done so far. Crypto world is tired of Gensler, and ready to see someone more reasonable to be in charge of the agency. Trump promised firing Gensler one of the things to do first day back in the office. He also promised to appoint a crypto friendly head of SEC. This alone is a huge win for bitcoin, this alone is a big promise for crypto world. But he had a lot more to say about bitcoin and crypto.
It was very clear that Trump was friendly to the crowd that represented bitcion and crypto world. He addressed the crowd with admiration and comparing them to famous innovators like Edison, Wright bothers, and Carnegies. He called people in the crowd high IQ individuals, repeatedly. They may have been one of Trump's rare humble moments. He expressed how he views bitcoin and crypto as an important technology and innovation. He pledged to make things easier for the industry in the US, and expressed desire to make US the crypto capital of the planet. To achieve that he plans to implement clear guidelines and regulations that are crypto friendly, he wants to create a bitcoin advisory council for the president, he wants to retain all bitcoin related jobs in the US, he wants to make electricity a lot cheaper and attractive for bitcoin mining in the US, he wants to protect self-custody rights, and more.
Trump compared bitcoin to the steel industry of 100 years ago. Wow, this sounds like a material from Michael Saylor's playbook. This comparison is big, and show that Trump has a deeper understanding of bitcoin and how it is an important innovation that will be transforming our societies, the world, and our lives. He knew the numbers. How bitcoin market cap surpassed big companies and was about to surpass silver and perhaps in the near future even gold's market cap. While showing decent understanding of the technology and innovation, and where we are heading he also mentioned how it not easy to understand.
One day it probably will overtake gold, but based on the way it's going now, it could very well be a possibility. There's never been anything like it, and I don't think you've ever seen anything like it, and most people have no idea what the hell it is. You know that, right? So what happens when they figure it out? That's going to really be something? Bitcoin is not just a marvel of technology, as you know, it's a miracle of cooperation and human achievement and a lot of relationships that are formed.
~ Donald Trump
He talked about how individuals and entities that are supposed to be competing with each other were in fact cooperating, collaborating with each other and building relationships that benefit all. That is a great observation and a complement for the crypto world. Among important points Trump made were that how bitcoin stands for freedom and property rights and how this is important and deserves attention and protection. But all points were absolutely excellent. I don't remember them all, but I am sure this will be discussed for a while.
He talked about the bitcoins the US government hold and how the number is significant. Just recently when German government was selling their bitcoin, there were rumors that US government was planning to sell a lot of bitcoins. Trump pledged to never sell all the bitcoins US government has and instead storing them a strategic reserves. US government may just become a hodler. I think this makes perfect sense and I have been saying this for a while now. These coins didn't cost US anything, they were confiscated. Might as well keep them forever, and perhaps one day they will pay of the debt. At the initial glance they may not be enough to pay off the debt, but this is a good first step. In the future US government may adopt more aggressive bitcoin investment strategy.
Michael Saylor had a great presentation with slides, showing how various investors like individuals, companies, institutions, and governments may benefit from bitcoin investments. He separated these potential investors as normal, 10% bitcoin maxi, bitcoin double maxi, bitcoin triple maxi. This was an interesting take. In one of the slides he made a case for US government to invest and depending how much it invest when it can pay off the debt, make profit, get rich, etc. At the end of the speech Trump pledged to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served. Trumps seems to be all in.
Topic of bitcoin and crypto now became one of the big election choice. For those who care about bitcoin and crypto, Trump showed clear roadmap and policy. I don't think anything was left unanswered within this topic. The question is how important this topic is for voters. How influential their votes are in the presidential election. While every vote counts, I don't think there are significant number of people who would vote only based on this issues. At the same time those who invested in crypto one way or the other are in tens of millions in the US if not higher. Usually bitcoin and crypto enthusiast don't care much about politics, since politicians lie and don't do much of useful things. We tend to like government just stay away from crypto and mind their own business. But perhaps this should be an important topic in elections. We have seen how hostile SEC and other US agencies can when policies are anti-crypto. One last thing, Trump even knew about operation Choke Point 2.0, and pledge to put an end to it.
This is big win for bitcoin. We will be talking about how things are changing for months if not years. While bitcoin had move upwards movement today, it wasn't anything drastic yet. I am surprised that we didn't get a new all time high today. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
