Bitcoin as a Strategic Reserve

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.

You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.

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.

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.

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.

This week

• This is a pretty quiet week. In the U.S., the House is in recess and the Senate is wrapping up.

Elsewhere:

• (New York Magazine) NY Mag’s John Herrman wrote about the continued walling off of the internet as large language model companies try to scrape greater and greater amounts of data for their products.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Twitter @nikhileshde.

You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.