The three- day 2024 Bitcoin Conference officially launched on the 25th. What attracted the most attention from the market was that former U.S. President Trump will deliver a half-hour speech at 3 a.m. on Sunday (28th) Taiwan time. The market is expecting him to sell BTC. Any major benefits?
Prior to this, people including MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor, Ark Investment founder Cathie Wood, BlackRock executive... and others gave speeches one after another, and the independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The remarks sparked heated debate.
Requiring the U.S. government to purchase 550 BTC per day
He claimed that if elected as president, he would sign an executive order requiring the United States to purchase 550 BTC per day to establish a strategic reserve of 4 million BTC (current price of approximately $270 billion), and would instruct the IRS to issue public guidelines, All transactions between Bitcoin and U.S. dollars are non-reportable and tax-free.
For cryptocurrency believers, this proposal can be said to be very attractive; however, we know that his success rate of being elected president is very low, so the chance of this political idea being realized is probably slim.
However, he revealed that as far as he knows, tomorrow Trump may announce a plan to authorize the US government to purchase 1 million Bitcoins as a strategic reserve. This is more likely, and Trump’s plan will be revealed in a few hours. What kind of medicine is being sold?
According to foreign media reports, multiple sources pointed out that Trump and Robert Jr. Kennedy has met several times this month, including in Milwaukee during the Republican National Convention to discuss what government positions could be arranged for Trump if he takes office for the second time, so it is judged that the two have a good personal relationship.
Note: National strategic reserve assets refer to assets held by a country to respond to economic uncertainty, external shocks or other emergencies. These assets usually include traditional safe-haven assets gold, foreign exchange reserves represented by the US dollar, euro, and Japanese yen, reserve assets Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as government bonds, foreign currency denominated deposits and other highly liquid assets.
If elected, he will buy 9.4 million BTC, rivaling US gold reserves
In fact, when he was interviewed earlier, he also proposed more radical policies. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that if elected as President of the United States, he would call on the federal government to purchase Bitcoin worth $615 billion (approximately 9.4 million BTC, or equivalent accounting for nearly 45% of the total supply) until the United States holds as much Bitcoin as gold reserves.
At the same time, he also praised Bitcoin as an honest currency:
It’s a currency based on proof of work, everything is on the ledger, it’s decentralized, and that’s the kind of democracy we need to do.
It has to be said that he may be the most Bitcoin-friendly politician among all the U.S. presidential candidates.
Collection of wonderful speeches at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference
Bitcoin and Lightning Network remain retail banking hopes
Cointelegraph reported that first, Christian Catalini, chief strategy officer of Lightspark, and Joey Garcia, director of public affairs, policy and regulation at Xapo Bank, discussed the impact of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network on retail banking. Christian Catalini emphasized that Bitcoin has been able to Users can seamlessly transfer value to more than 200 countries and regions around the world:
24 hours a day, with extremely strong liquidity, there is only one asset, and that is Bitcoin. It has clear regulations and has deposit and withdrawal channels in almost every country in the world.
BlackRock’s clients are mainly interested in BTC and ETH
Then Michael Mitchnick, BlackRock’s head of digital assets, discussed BlackRock’s move to enter the cryptocurrency field by launching Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs in 2024 with Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart. Michael Mitchnick said:
I want to talk about the current stage of our customers, their interest is mainly focused on Bitcoin, of course, they are also interested in Ethereum, but there is currently very little interest outside of those two products.
Michael Mitchnick pointed out that when spot ETFs were launched, direct investors drove demand, and BlackRock’s wealth advisory and institutional investors were still gaining momentum.
Jimmy Song criticizes conference, dissatisfaction focuses on traditional finance and ETFs
Bitcoin developer and advocate Jimmy Song expressed his unwavering views during a panel discussion titled "Make America Bitcoin Great Again" with former mixed martial arts champion Ben Askren, slamming the involvement of traditional financial institutions such as BlackRock. , as well as a focus on banking, trading and ETFs.
Jimmy Song said that the greatness of Bitcoin lies in freedom and autonomy. These are the foundations on which the United States was founded. Unfortunately, due to money and the power of the money printing press, what people get is an administrative state that rules the people. They think they are better than the people. Even better, these potential factors represent the interests of the rent-seeking class and the administrative state, which run counter to the concepts of freedom and autonomy:
I hate it when Bitcoin conferences talk about this. Banks, ETFs, BlackRock, these are not my values, they are not Bitcoin’s values, and they are not American values.
Extended reading: Michael Saylor: Bitcoin is expected to reach $13 million in 2045, with an average annual increase of 30%
