When Donald Trump strode onto the stage at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville Saturday, he solidified a complete flip on cryptocurrency — something he called a potential “disaster waiting to happen” just a few years ago.
“We want to be choosing between pro Bitcoin candidates,” Brian Morgenstern, a former White House spokesperson for Trump who now works in crypto, said. “We want everybody to be pro-Bitcoin.”
Millions of Americans own cryptocurrency. Yet government regulations make buying and selling the digital assets cumbersome. Some crypto investors, especially those attending the conference at which Trump spoke, want that to change. Trump’s address to that crowd signals a seriousness about their cause.
“This is the first time a president, or former president, has addressed the bitcoin community directly,” Brandon Green, chief of staff for the organization putting on the conference, said.
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“Bitcoiners are young, they’re diverse, they’re a little bit more likely to be a Democrat than a Republican, very likely to be centrist or independent,” Morgenstern said. “So the fact that the Republican Party is jumping in here means they see an opportunity to perhaps attract voters who might not normally be with them.”
To many bitcoin enthusiasts, the main character in what they see as a government overly-hostile to crypto is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has prominently crusaded against abuse of crypto for illegal or — as she sees them — economically predatory purposes.
“Regulators and elected leaders, they’re addicted to that printer and they just keep printing and printing money,” John Deaton, a Republican running to unseat Warren said. “That causes inflation and it causes hyperinflation, and Bitcoin and crypto assets offer an alternative way to sort of deal with the debt issue.”
Deaton is running primarily on crypto regulation reform.
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Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also spoke at the Bitcoin Conference trying to woo bitcoin investors. He advocates for the U.S. purchase of a strategic reserve of bitcoin, as well as making transactions between bitcoin and U.S. dollars un-reportable to the IRS.
“I bought [bitcoin] for the same reason that you see such enthusiasm among 60 million mainly-young people in this country, is that bitcoin is this very elegant, almost poetic, solution to so many of our problems,” Kennedy told Scripps News.
Kennedy denied reports he’s considering ending his campaign and endorsing Donald Trump, even as the two again convene on the sidelines of the conference.
Despite Kennedy’s pitch, the political winds appear to be coalescing behind Trump and the Republican ticket — a shift the party hopes will help push Trump to the White House in November.
