Nashville
CNN
—
For a while, Donald Trump It would have been surprising for him to be the headliner at a cryptocurrency conference.
As president, Trump declared Bitcoin “is not money,” criticized it as “highly unstable and unfounded,” and warned that cryptocurrencies help fuel illegal underground markets.
“The United States has only one real currency and it’s stronger than it’s ever been,” Trump wrote on Twitter in 2019. “It’s the US Dollar!”
But on Saturday, Trump will speak at the cryptocurrency industry’s largest annual gathering here in Nashville, not as a skeptic, but as one of its best-known supporters. A complete reversal on this issue During the former president’s recent campaign for the White House.
Despite crypto’s recent troubled history and his own past concerns, Trump has fully embraced the hype and promise of this emerging industry. His campaign is now accepting Bitcoin donations, raising about $4 million worth of contributions, according to a source familiar with his fundraising. He has denounced the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate the industry as a “war on crypto,” without acknowledging the massive fraud scheme that has shattered public confidence in digital currencies. And as president, he has vowed to make it easier for crypto mining companies to operate in the United States.
“Or other countries will get it,” Trump said in Wisconsin earlier this month.
Meanwhile, the bitcoin industry has also embraced Trump. Industry leaders and investors have donated millions of dollars to his campaign and allied political committees. They are backing his candidacy with a vast online audience, giving him a platform to speak directly to the 20,000 most enthusiastic followers expected at this year’s Bitcoin Conference.
“A lot of these people consider themselves single-issue voters,” said Jacob Silverman, a technology writer and author of the best-selling book “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.” “When Trump or anyone else comes out in support of bitcoin, that’s important to them.”
Since Trump came out against Bitcoin in 2019, the volatile industry has seen arrests, trials and Sam Bankman Freed’s imprisonmentBankman Freed, founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and once the face of the company whose celebrity sponsors include comedian Larry David and superstar quarterback Tom Brady, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March for running a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme through his companies.
The Trump campaign declined to discuss what prompted the former president’s about-face on Bitcoin. Nor did Trump address one of his main criticisms of the digital currency: that it has no practical, real-world uses beyond being a highly speculative investment. After attending the Nashville convention, he is scheduled to hold a more traditional campaign event in St. Cloud, Minnesota later that day.
Trump campaign spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement to CNN that “cryptocurrency innovators and other companies in the tech sector are under attack from Democrats,” but that Trump “stands ready to encourage American leadership in this and other emerging technologies.”
Republican allies have also embraced Trump’s pivot to bitcoin. Speaking at the conference on Friday, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina argued that the former president understands their concerns about economic freedom that are commonly heard in the cryptocurrency community.
“Whether people love the dollar or they love digital assets, we want them to be in charge of their own decisions,” Scott said.
David Bailey, CEO of Bitcoin-focused media company BTC, said in a recent interview that industry leaders have been trying to woo Trump for months, educating his campaign on his policy agenda and the opportunities to sway voters on the issue.
Bailey acknowledged that their pitch also included “how much support we could get from the industry” by embracing cryptocurrency, a conversation that also included a meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this summer.
“Everything just accelerated at that point,” said Bailey, who organizes the annual conference where Trump will speak on Saturday.
Indeed, support for Trump quickly followed: Billionaire cryptocurrency moguls Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss each pledged to donate $1 million worth of Bitcoin to Trump’s campaign. The Federal Election Commission has allowed political committees to accept Bitcoin as donations since 2014, with the value determined by the price at the time the donation is received.
Cryptocurrencies are The latest fundraising barrage in Silicon Valley President Trump’s new running mate, the Ohio senator, J.D. VanceDavid Sachs, a prominent cryptocurrency advocate and billionaire tech entrepreneur, hosted one of the fundraising events at his home.
“I think one of the things that you heard a lot at that dinner was about the difficulties that business people are having under the Biden administration,” Sachs said on a recent episode of “All In,” the podcast he co-hosts. “People in the crypto space just want a framework. They just want the government to tell them how to do things, and they can’t.”
Industry leaders and advocates have become increasingly politicized, helping to fund super PACs that overwhelmingly support Republicans over Democrats.
“It’s time for the crypto army to send a message to Washington,” Tyler Winklevoss wrote. long Social media post Supports Trump. “Attacking us is political suicide.”
Eric Sufer, a political adviser to major crypto companies, said that crypto people who were pushed out of power in the wake of the Bankman Freed scandal are “seeking political recognition after years of anarchy.”
“They believe this is their chance, and it’s hard to resist someone who’s telling them everything they want to hear,” Sufer said.
The cryptocurrency industry is The Fall of FTXAfter plummeting in 2022, bitcoin’s price has recovered, hitting an all-time high in June.The excitement for this year’s Nashville event was palpable inside the Music City Center. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also spoke at the conference on Friday.
Still, as awareness of cryptocurrencies grows, many Americans are voicing concerns. 2023 Pew Research Survey It found that 9 in 10 adults have heard of cryptocurrency, and of those, 75% do not believe it is safe or trustworthy.
But Trump’s outreach to crypto supporters fits into other efforts to find new supporters in unconventional places. Earlier this year, Trump addressed members at the Libertarian Party’s annual convention, promising to “support self-governance for the nation’s 50 million cryptocurrency holders.” There is a fair amount of overlap between the Libertarian Party and the crypto community.
Trump supporters weren’t hard to find at the Bitcoin Conference. John Fisher, a 61-year-old from Atlanta, has been personally investing in cryptocurrencies since 2021. He voted for Trump in 2020 and plans to vote again this year.
Still, he offered a clear view of Trump’s attempts to woo conference attendees.
“Any politician will stand for something if they want to get votes,” Fischer said.
Luke Broyles, a 25-year-old Michigan native who works in the cryptocurrency industry, is similarly concerned about President Trump’s latest plea, despite his recent comments.
“I think bitcoin advocates are pretty skeptical,” Broyles said, “and I think that’s justified. At the end of the day, people are investing in bitcoin because they don’t trust politicians.”
