( #AnfeliaInvestment ) For a while, Donald Trump would have been an unlikely keynote speaker at a cryptocurrency conference.
As president, Trump declared that bitcoin “is not money” and criticized it as “highly volatile and based on nothing.” He warned that cryptoassets helped facilitate illegal underground markets.
"We only have one real currency in the USA, and it's stronger than ever," Trump wrote on Twitter in 2019. "It's called the United States Dollar!"
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But on Saturday, Trump will speak at the cryptocurrency industry’s largest annual gathering here in Nashville not as a cynic but as one of its best-known supporters, the culmination of a complete about-face on the issue during the former president’s run for the White House.
Despite cryptocurrency’s troubled recent history and his own reservations, Trump has fully embraced the industry’s enthusiasm and hopes. His campaign now accepts donations in bitcoin, and has raised about $4 million, according to a source familiar with his campaign funding. He has attacked the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate the industry as a “war on crypto” without acknowledging the massive frauds that have shattered public confidence in digital currencies. And he has pledged as president to make it easier for cryptocurrency mining companies to operate in the United States.
"Otherwise, other countries are going to get it," Trump said earlier this month in Wisconsin.
The industry, in turn, has embraced Trump. Its leaders and investors have donated millions of dollars to his campaign and sympathetic political committees. They are cheering his candidacy on to his vast online audience and are now giving him a platform to speak directly to 20,000 of his most engaged supporters at this year’s Bitcoin Conference.
"A lot of these people consider themselves single-issue voters," says technology writer Jacob Silverman, author of the best-selling Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud. "If Trump or anyone else says he's pro-bitcoin, that matters to them."
A volatile industry
Since Trump voiced his opposition to bitcoin in 2019, the volatile industry has only faced more turmoil, most notably the arrest, trial and imprisonment of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Once the face of a company that counted comedian Larry David and superstar quarterback Tom Brady among its celebrity backers, Bankman-Fried was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison for running a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme through his companies.
The Trump campaign has not clarified what prompted the former president’s U-turn on bitcoin. Trump has also not addressed one of the main criticisms of digital currencies: the lack of practical real-world use, other than being a highly speculative investment. His appearance at the Nashville convention will be followed by a more traditional campaign rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
Trump campaign spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement to CNN that "cryptocurrency innovators and others in the technology sector are under attack" by Democrats, while the former president was "keen to foster American leadership in this and other emerging technologies."
Republican allies have joined Trump in his pivot to bitcoin. Speaking at the conference on Friday, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott argued that the former president understands his concerns about financial freedom, a common refrain in the crypto community.
"We want people, whether they love their dollars or their digital assets, to be able to make their own decisions," Scott said.
Industry leaders have been courting Trump for months and have been educating his campaign about his political agenda and the opportunity to influence voters on the issue, David Bailey, CEO of bitcoin-focused media company BTC Inc, said in a recent interview.
Bailey acknowledged that among his arguments was “the support he can get from the industry” if he embraces cryptocurrency. Their conversations included a meeting earlier this summer with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
"Everything accelerated rapidly from that point on," said Bailey, whose company organizes the annual conference where Trump will speak on Saturday.
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Indeed, support for Trump was swift. Billionaire cryptocurrency magnates 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 contributions since 2014, the value of which is determined by the price at the time the contribution is received.
Cryptocurrency was also a topic of discussion during a recent Silicon Valley fundraiser that Trump’s new running mate, Ohio Sen. J. D. Vance, helped organize. Billionaire tech entrepreneur David Sacks, a prominent cryptocurrency advocate, hosted one of the fundraisers at his home.
“One of the things I think we heard a lot at that dinner was the difficulty that business people were having under this Biden administration,” Sacks said on a recent episode of his All-In podcast. “Crypto miners just want a framework. They just want the government to tell them how to operate, and they’re not getting that.” $BTC
Entering politics
Industry leaders and advocates have become increasingly political, helping fund independent campaign committees that have overwhelmingly supported Republicans over Democrats.
"It's time for the crypto army to send a message to Washington," Tyler Winklevoss wrote in a lengthy social media post supporting Trump. "That attacking us is political suicide."
Eric Soufer, a political adviser to major cryptocurrency firms, said that crypto insiders who were ousted from the halls of power after the Bankman-Fried episode are “looking for political validation after years in the wilderness.”
"They think now is their time, and it's hard to resist someone who's telling them everything they want to hear," Soufer said.
The cryptocurrency industry has seen a resurgence since the fall of FTX. After plummeting in 2022, the price of bitcoin has recovered and hit an all-time high in June. The excitement surrounding 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, many Americans have expressed concerns about cryptocurrencies, even as more people become aware of them. A 2023 Pew Research survey found that nearly 9 in 10 adults had heard of cryptocurrencies and that 75% of those people did not believe they were safe or reliable.
But Trump’s outreach to crypto-friendly voters is in line with other efforts to find new support in unconventional places. Earlier this year, Trump reached out to members of the Libertarian Party at its annual convention, where he promised to “support the right to self-custody for the nation’s 50 million crypto holders.” There is considerable overlap between libertarians and the crypto community.
It wasn't hard to find Trump supporters inside the Bitcoin Conference. John Fischer, a 61-year-old from Atlanta, has personally invested in cryptocurrencies since 2021. He voted for Trump in 2020 and plans to do so again.
Still, he was clear about Trump's attempts to woo conference attendees.
"Every politician is going to be in favor of something if they want to get votes," Fischer said.
Luke Broyles, a 25-year-old Michigan resident who works in the cryptocurrency sector, was also unsure about Trump's latest nods despite his recent rhetoric.
"I think people are pretty skeptical of bitcoin," Broyles said. "I think that's reasonable. Ultimately, people are into bitcoin because they don't trust politicians."
