Bitcoin prices hit a six-week high after Donald Trump threw his weight behind the crypto industry, say Jack Simpson and Dan Milmo in The Guardian. The Republican presidential candidate told delegates at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Tennessee that he would end the “persecution” of crypto by regulators. He also suggested that instead of selling bitcoin that is seized in police raids, the government could keep them as part of a national stockpile.
Trump’s pledge that “on day one” he will fire Gary Gensler, chair of the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), drew particularly strong applause from the crowd. Gensler has described bitcoin as “primarily a speculative, volatile asset that’s also used for illicit activity including ransomware, money laundering, sanction evasion and terrorist financing”.
Gensler’s SEC has launched more than 40 crypto-related enforcement actions since 2023. Trump used to agree with Gensler, say Jack Simpson and Dan Milmo. In 2019, the then-president said that bitcoin was “highly volatile and based on thin air” and that “we have only one real currency in the USA… It is called the… dollar!” But he has since done a U-turn, saying that “if crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA”.
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Trump is right that regulators have often unfairly targeted crypto operators, says The Wall Street Journal. Gensler’s SEC has sued crypto companies for violating securities laws when its own rules make compliance with those laws almost impossible.
Still, bullish talk of a “strategic national bitcoin stockpile” sounds imprudent given bitcoin’s infamous volatility. Politicians should not be in the business of picking winners. “If cryptocurrencies really are a libertarian vehicle to invest free from political vagaries, then they should trade on their own without government help.”
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