(Bloomberg) -- The cryptocurrency community has anxiously been awaiting a speech by Donald Trump on Saturday, but his opponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have stolen Trump’s thunder by announcing that the former president is considering the creation of a massive government reserve of Bitcoin should he return to the White House.
“I understand that tomorrow President Trump may announce his plan to build a Bitcoin Fort Knox and authorize the US government to buy a million Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset,” Kennedy told the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville on Friday, a day before Trump was scheduled to speak at the same event. “And I applaud that announcement.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the remarks.
Kennedy told the conference that he would go even further than Trump if he’s elected: He would sign an executive order on his first day in office directing the Treasury to buy Bitcoin every day and add it to the tokens currently held by the Department of Justice until the US builds a reserve of at least 4 million Bitcoin.
One million Bitcoin currently have a market value of more than $68 billion, while 4 million are worth about $274 billion. Bitcoin currently has a market capitalization of about $1.3 trillion.
Kennedy said his plan would ensure US dominance in the sector and allow the nation to have the same proportion of Bitcoin as it has gold in its reserves, which would drive up Bitcoin’s valuation.
Kennedy, who is running a distant third behind Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in polls ahead of the November presidential election, also said he would order the Internal Revenue Service to treat all transactions between Bitcoin and the US dollar as nontaxable.
Trump’s speech to the Bitcoin conference is scheduled for 3 p.m. New York time on Saturday, and will follow a fund-raiser targeting donors in the crypto industry who are in Nashville for the event. He invited supporters to an event with an asking price of $844,600 for a seat at a crypto-themed round table. Other prominent political figures at the conference include Trump’s vice presidential pick JD Vance, as well as his Republican primary opponent Vivek Ramaswamy.
The conference’s exhibition space was filled with promotions mixing Bitcoin and Trump themes, including vendors selling red baseball hats that said “Make Bitcoin Great Again” and “Bitcoin Made in America.”
“If Trump is elected, the U.S. will have to add Bitcoin as a reserve, because it is digital gold,” said Arseniy Grusha, chief executive officer of data-center firm Dataprana, who attended the conference. “The earlier they do that, the better it will be for the United States.”
Trump’s support for cryptocurrencies this election cycle is still relatively new and marks a departure from his stance on digital assets during his presidency, when he proclaimed that he was “not a fan” of Bitcoin and warned that unregulated crypto assets could facilitate unlawful behavior.
It’s no accident that crypto industry executives have crossed paths with the Republican nominee’s campaign trail: A potential second Trump term is likely their best chance for a softer approach from regulators, who heavily pursued crypto companies under President Joe Biden following the 2022 collapse of the FTX exchange and a string of industry bankruptcies that followed. Wealthy crypto executives have donated millions to Trump and pro-crypto political groups.
The former president ramped up his backing of cryptocurrencies in early June, when he met with several Bitcoin miners at his Mar-a-Lago Club and promised that he would advocate for US miners if elected.
Since that meeting, Trump has continued to publicly tout his support for cryptocurrencies, including posting on his Truth Social account that Bitcoin mining could be “our last line of defense against a CBDC,” referring to a central bank digital currency. Trump’s disdain for CBDCs echos sentiments held by crypto executives, who see a potential digital dollar as a way for the government to enhance financial surveillance on its citizens.
The former president also amended his party’s platform for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to read: “Republicans will end Democrats’ unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown and oppose the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency.”
‘Doesn’t Really Matter’
Despite Trump’s support for the industry, not everyone at the Nashville conference is a fan.
“I never voted and I won’t vote in this election and I probably never will,” said Colin Aulds, founder of crypto miner 10NetZero. “I don’t trust Trump to not backstab us. Politicians lie, and he’s still a politician.”
For others in Nashville, the enthusiasm for Bitcoin far outweighed their enthusiasm for any candidate.
“It doesn’t really matter who the president is,” said Chris Kramer, who traveled from Arizona for the event. “I don’t really care much about it, because Bitcoin will do its thing regardless.”
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
