President Trump told a group of crypto industry executives that he had taken “historic action” to deliver on his promise “to make America the bitcoin superpower of the world” at the inaugural White House Crypto Summit on Friday.
Trump referred to his executive order signed on Thursday that officially established a strategic bitcoin reserve in the U.S.
“This will be a virtual Fort Knox for digital gold that will be housed within the United States Treasury,” Trump said during his speech at the summit.
The executive order calls on federal agencies to conduct an audit on all crypto assets currently held by the U.S. government.
"The federal government is already among the largest holders of Bitcoin, as you know, really one of the largest holders in the world, with as many as 200,000 Bitcoin obtained via civil law and various other forms of law, including enforcement actions," Trump added.
"These existing holdings will form the foundation of the new reserve."
After receiving considerable blowback from even some of his allies by suggesting on social media that he wanted to include other digital assets along with bitcoin in the strategic reserve, Trump decided to keep it bitcoin-focused.
How will Trump's strategic bitcoin reserve work?
Named the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and the U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, this digital reserve will hold cryptocurrency seized by law enforcement.
Since the U.S. government currently holds only bitcoin, it is likely to be only sole cryptocurrency designated for the strategic reserve.
The government does not plan to make any further purchases associated with the stockpile of altcoins, a decision that sent the price of these assets down on Friday.
However, Trump said at the summit that the Treasury and Commerce Departments “will explore new pathways to accumulate additional bitcoin holdings for the reserve, provided that it’s done at no cost to the taxpayer.”
Trump also said on Friday that he wanted to sign stablecoin legislation before Congress breaks for its August recess.
The president took a swipe at his predecessor for the way his administration handled the bitcoin stockpile that the government had seized as part of various enforcement actions.
“Unfortunately, in recent years the U.S. government has foolishly sold tens of thousands of additional bitcoins that were worth billions and billions of dollars had they not sold them,” Trump said.
“But they did sell them, mostly during the Biden administration. From this day on, America will follow the rule that every bitcoiner knows very well: never sell your bitcoin.”
He also criticized regulators who he said had in the past “strong-armed banks into closing the accounts of crypto businesses and entrepreneurs, effectively blocking some money transfers to and from exchanges, and they weaponized the government against the entire industry.”
The summit featured executives from some of the biggest names in the crypto industry, including Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, Gemini, Chainlink, Robinhood, Gemini and others.
Cameron Winklevoss, who owns the digital asset exchange Gemini along with his brother Tyler Winklevoss, thanked Trump for creating a more favorable regulatory environment for the crypto industry.
“We never thought we’d get attacked in our own backyard after trying to do the right thing for so many years and trying to raise the bar with respect to regulations, so it's truly wonderful to see how things have changed and how the pendulum has swung back in the way that it has,” he said.
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