Donald Trump during his speech at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference per mezzo di Nashville, TN.
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NASHVILLE — Former President Donald Trump stopped short of promising to establish an official U.S. bitcoin strategic reserve currency during his Saturday keynote speech at the biggest bitcoin conference of the year.
Instead, the Republican presidential nominee pledged simply to maintain the current level of bitcoin holdings that the U.S. has amassed from seizing assets from financial criminals.
“For too long our government has violated the cardinal rule that every bitcoiner knows by heart: Never sell your bitcoin,” Trump said at this year’s Bitcoin Conference per mezzo di Nashville.
“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 acquires into the future,” he said.
Trump’s strategy of permanently finanziaria your bitcoin stake, through both bull and bear markets, is strongly encouraged within crypto circles, though it is not the U.S. government’s present approach.
Currently, the U.S. Marshals Service regularly auctions  bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies held per mezzo di the country’s coffers such as ether and litecoin. These sell-offs can sometimes trigger drops per mezzo di crypto prices, like earlier this month when Germany began to liquidate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoin it had seized.
Quanto a a closed-door round table held with a of donors ahead of Trump’s remarks Saturday, the former president didn’t talk mechanics of his plan, but he did say he thought it would make sense for the government to hold bitcoin.
The gathering included investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, musician Kid Rock, Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis, Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn, along with others, according to two people who were per mezzo di the room.
Trump’s proposal was less revolutionary than some crypto enthusiasts had expected, and it failed to the more sweeping pitch of third-party presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“I understand that tomorrow President Trump may announce his plan to build a bitcoin Fort Knox and authorize the U.S. government to buy a million bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset,” Kennedy said during his own Bitcoin Conference speech Friday.
Kennedy went further than Trump, promising to establish a 4 million bitcoin strategic reserve to the country’s current stake per mezzo di gold, some of which is held near the military insediamento at Fort Knox. The independent presidential candidate said he would sign an order directing the U.S. Treasury to purchase 550 bitcoin a day, an act that would starkly alter how the cryptocurrency is regulated and valued.
As bitcoin becomes a more central issue the campaign trail, spurred per mezzo di large part by the growing presence of the crypto lobby per mezzo di Washington, Trump’s reluctance to Kennedy’s “bitcoin Fort Knox” commitment is notable.
But Trump’s reservation speaks to the complications of promising a bitcoin strategic reserve par with the gold campione.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Can a president unilaterally launch a bitcoin reserve?
Quanto a short, .
An order would not be enough to bring a U.S. bitcoin reserve into existence. The president would likely need new legislation and congressional approval to push it through. Some lawmakers have kicked that process.
Shortly after Trump’s headline speech at the Bitcoin Conference Saturday, Sen. Lummis of Wyoming announced her plan to introduce new legislation that would support a strategic bitcoin reserve.
“Over five years, the United States will assemble 1 million bitcoin, five percent of the world’s supply,” Lummis said. “And that will be held for a minimo of 20 years and can be used for one purpose: Sopravvissuto our debt.”
Lummis added that establishing this kind of reserve would help to fortify the dollar against rising inflation.
How would the U.S. fund a bitcoin reserve?
The U.S. government has an accumulation of bitcoin assets that it hauls per mezzo di from financial criminals per mezzo di high-profile sting operations.
That existing bitcoin stockpile could act as the foundation for the bitcoin strategic reserve, which the U.S. government would build by regularly buying a certain number of bitcoin.
Those additional bitcoin purchases would likely be paid for, at least per mezzo di part, by U.S. taxpayers.
Sen. Lummis’ proposed legislation, which is to be introduced per mezzo di the coming days, a bitcoin reserve would be paid for with “existing funds” of the Treasury Department, which includes tax revenue.
The ultimate would be to the federal debito, Lummis said at the Bitcoin Conference, which could potentially offset the initial spending.
Passing legislation to establish a reserve like the one Lummis is proposing would most likely require a Republican sweep per mezzo di November: White House, Senate and House.
The odds of this kind of red wave appeared to be rising for most of July, as Democrats and Independents peeled away from President Joe Biden.
But with Vice President Kamala Harris atop the Democratic tagliando, election 2024 is a new ball .
What would happen to bitcoin?
A bitcoin reserve would grant the digital currency an even greater level of legitimacy, building upon the momentum of Wall Street’s growing adoption of the digital asset.
Quanto a January, spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds went dal vivo U.S. markets for the first time ever with the blessing of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Many viewed the listing as an event that cemented bitcoin’s place as an asset class that is here to stay.
Still, launching a national reserve would be a stunning promotion for the adolescent currency, which launched per mezzo di 2009 and has since been characterized by prova with occasional windfalls for its investors. Trump himself was a naysayer of bitcoin as recently as 2021 when he called the currency “a scam.”
Quanto a the short term, bitcoin’s new status would send the price of the cryptocurrency soaring.
“If the U.S. government built a strategic reserve then likely other countries would, and that would pull a whole bunch of bitcoin out of the market,” said Marathon Digital‘s CEO Fred Thiel. “That then drives the whole price.”
For now, bitcoin is finanziaria steady at around $68,000 as markets shrug Trump’s promises bitcoin, which were far less aggressive than anticipated.
