Trump Speaks Saturday at the Bitcoin Conference. Here’s What Attendees Like ‘The Crypto Patriot’ Hope He Says.

• Former President Donald Trump speaks Saturday at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville.

• Attendees shared their hopes for the speech with CoinDesk.

NASHVILLE — It’s finally here: President Donald Trump Bitcoin Conference Speech Eve. That means Friday is the last weekday you’ll exist in a world where a U.S. presidential candidate hasn’t given the keynote speech at the Bitcoin Conference.

There is speculation he’ll announce plans, or at least hopes, for the U.S. government to hoard a bitcoin strategic reserve. Trump has spoken previously about wanting bitcoin (BTC) to be made in America, so perhaps that’ll come up again. Maybe he’ll diss his likely opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, for declining an invitation to the very conference he’s speaking at.

CoinDesk journalists are in Nashville for the event. Here’s what attendees on the show floor and speakers on stage had to say.

‘A bold statement’

Fred Thiel, CEO of bitcoin miner Marathon Digital, echoed talking points many hope the former president embraces: “If the U.S. were to have a strategic reserve for bitcoin, they could project power,” he said on stage. “The U.S. needs to be the largest holder of bitcoin and the largest miner of bitcoin.”

Others buzzing around the conference floor are excited about what Donald Trump will say tomorrow – or want him to amp them up.

“I want to hear [Trump] give a bold statement on the future of crypto and spark up what we all want,” someone who gave his name as Caesar and said he founded the MAGA VP memecoin told CoinDesk during an interview. “And that’s a movement and that’s a run. And that’s what we’re here for and that’s what we’re here to promote. We are all chasing the dream of that freedom.”

Whether “movement and run” is in reference to a bitcoin price spike or more empowerment or wider liberty or further freedom is up to interpretation, though the answer could easily be “all of the above.”

Help the dollar with bitcoin

And then there was The Crypto Patriot, the pseudonym for a member of the MAGA MEME PAC. That’s a group of crypto advocates who are visiting swing states to register voters in an attempt to unify the crypto vote. (Despite the name, MAGA Meme PAC is not an officially registered political action committee.)

“I hope [Trump] just keeps his same tune,” The Crypto Patriot said, adding that he’s a fan of the U.S. having a bitcoin reserve. “Hopefully they’re going to back our reserve with bitcoin and that’s what I’m hoping, to give the dollar some stability,” he added. “The dollar is currently under attack and the rest of the world is catching on to what we’re doing. If we can back it with bitcoin and bring back that standard where the dollar can’t be inflated, I think that would be a great strategic move to not only grow the entire crypto sphere but also help America prosper.”

Crypto advocate and former political candidate Michelle Bond remarked on the evolution of Trump’s crypto stance from hater to fan. “Look at how he’s come full circle. We know what’s on the platform already, but I think the message should be: We’re going to do everything we can to keep this industry onshore and keep the United States the leader in this space.”

She added: “I would really like to hear him detail the ways to get there. Also, I think the biggest and best way to do that is through the tone of the talk. You have this positive message and then you say: ‘All right, what do I need to do?’ and you put in the right financial regulators, you nominate people who are not anti-crypto. One of my ideas for him is to create a crypto czar in the administration and that person be the coordinator among the regulatory agencies and crypto. And he can do executive orders, we have lots of negative executive orders, what about a positive one?”

‘Some red meat’

While many are excited about the Trump speech, not everyone has excitable views on the topic. Bittrex Global CEO Oliver Linch, who is British, brings a more laissez-faire view on the Trump speech. “Will there be any show stoppers, like the bitcoin reserve? Who knows? There’ll be some red meat for the crypto enthusiasts, because of course there will be, but I think the fact that he’s doing it at all is the story.” Linch added: “In the U.K., neither major party even mentioned crypto” in the leadup to that nation’s recent election.

And then there are the regular attendees, unattached to any sort of organization – someone like Phil Whatley, a retired software developer from Alabama, who told CoinDesk he hopes Trump clarifies that bitcoin transactions are tax-free. “If you’re trading peer-to-peer, with a truly distributed system, then how’re you going to tax them?”

What will happen after Trump’s Saturday speech? Will bitcoin pump? Will it dump? Will it do nothing? Who knows, though it’s hard to see how Trump, the current favorite to win the election, speaking about the topic does anything but help the crypto market.

Something that might get it there? Copying the bullishness of fellow presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent. At a conference side event called Karate Combat, he said: “I am a huge supporter of bitcoin. I have most of my wealth in bitcoin. I am fully committed.”

CORRECTION (July 26, 2024, 22:05 UTC): A previous version of this story incorrectly said Peter Thiel spoke at the conference. It was actually Marathon’s Fred Thiel.

Bradley Keoun is the managing editor of CoinDesk’s Tech & Protocols team. He owns less than $1,000 each of several cryptocurrencies.

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