Donald Trump Backs ‘Strategic Bitcoin Stockpile’ in Speech to Crypto Faithful This move confirmed rumors spread by bitcoin enthusiasts who are hopeful that endorsement of a reserve from Trump could bolster the price of the cryptocurrency.

Trump also announced plans to appoint a bitcoin and crypto advisory council, whose task would be to “design transparent regulatory guidance to the benefit of your industry” in the first 100 days of his next presidency. He said he wanted the US to become the “crypto capital of the world.”

Trump also pledged to create a framework for ensuring the safe expansion of stablecoins, “allowing us to extend the dominance of the USD to other places around the world,” and doubled down on his vow to scrap any effort to create a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or digital dollar, saying “there will never be a CBDC while I’m president of the United States.”

“I will always defend the right to self-custody,” he told the exultant crowd. What got perhaps the biggest cheer was a day one promise to fire Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler.

“The moment I am sworn in, the persecution stops and the weaponization against your industry ends,” he said, name-checking Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as the industry’s sworn enemy.

He promised to make regulations friendly to crypto mining operations in the US, so workers wouldn’t have to “move to China.” Trump promised, again, to free Ross Ulbricht, imprisoned for life for his involvement with online underground market Silk Road, where people could buy items like illegal drugs before it was shut down in 2013.

The crowd expected the bitcoin strategic reserve announcement. On July 22, Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming posted “Big things … in store this week” on X, two days before Fox Business reported she would “announce legislation for a strategic bitcoin reserve” at the conference.

JUST IN - Trump, if President, pledges to form a Bitcoin Reserve, using 210,000 Bitcoin seized by the Department of Justice, as the core of a new “Strategic National Bitcoin Stockpile.”