President Donald Trump vowed to make America the "undisputed Bitcoin superpower and crypto capital of the world," during video remarks delivered to the Digital Asset Summit conference in New York Thursday.
It was only last night that Blockworks, the conference organizer, announced Trump would address attendees at its Digital Asset Summit in New York on Thursday morning. The 3-minute long address marks the first time ever that a sitting president would address a crypto industry conference.
Although the President didn't announce any new initiatives, he reiterated that he's called on Congress to pass "landmark legislation creating simple, common sense rules for stablecoins."
Senate Stablecoin Bill Passes Out of Committee With Strong Bi-Partisan Support
The U.S. Senate Banking Committee voted in favor of advancing the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act to a full Senate vote Thursday, with the legislation receiving bipartisan support. The bill passed through committee by a vote of 18-6, with five Senate Democrats joining Republicans to push the bill over the finish line with considerable breathing room. Democrats who voted for the GENIUS Act’s passage include bill cosponsor Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), as well as Senate Banking Committee members Mark...
With it, he said, "institutions large and small will be liberated to innovate and take part in one of the most exciting technological revolutions in modern history."
Just last week, the Senate voted to pass the Genius Act out of committee with strong bipartisan support. The bill’s sponsors, including Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), have said they intend for the GENIUS Act to receive a full vote on the Senate floor by the end of next month.
If the bill passes, it would create provisions addressing reserve requirements, audits, transparency, and licensing for stablecoin issuers.
Echoes of Nashville Bitcoin conference
During his unprecedented in-person appearance at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, while he was still campaigning for reelection, Trump urged attendees to "never sell your Bitcoin." That speech was also the first time that the President alluded to keeping the Bitcoin that had already been seized by the government.
"As the final part of my plan today, I am announcing that if I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration, the United States of America, to keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future,” Trump said at the time.
So far, President Trump seems intent on making good on his campaign promise.
Bitcoin Price Slides as Crypto Market Reacts to Trump’s Strategic Reserve Order
Bitcoin extended losses Thursday, falling 5.7% in less than an hour as investors reacted to President Donald Trump’s executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The decline came after Bitcoin surged above $92,000 earlier in the week on speculation surrounding the initiative. But the rally has faded as traders take profits and reassess the market impact of the government’s new digital asset policy. Bitcoin has since rebounded slightly to $87,200, CoinGecko data shows. Ethereum lost...
On March 6, he signed an executive order to create the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. But the investors were disappointed to see that he was initially sticking to his plan to keep Bitcoin the government had seized or confiscated in connection to crimes rather than use a portion of its budget to buy BTC.
But there are efforts underway to see that it does. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced her BITCOIN Act in the Senate last week. If passed, it would allow the government to acquire up to $80 billion worth of Bitcoin.
Just days later, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that would enshrine into law the President's proposed Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. But the bill is crucially different from the legislation Lummis introduced in the Senate.
While Lummis' bill specifies how much more Bitcoin the government could add to its reserve, Donalds' bill would authorize the U.S. Treasury Secretary and Commerce Secretary to add an unspecified amount of Bitcoin to a federal reserve if such acquisitions were “budget neutral,” Donalds told Decrypt in a statement.
It's worth mentioning his draft of the bill contains no such provision.
Edited by James Rubin.
