On July 26th local time, in sunny Nashville , Bitcoin 2024 was in full swing , and more well-known figures in politics and the crypto industry took the stage to speak.
Nashville's Music City Center had stepped up security, with Secret Service checks causing some delays and long lines as attendees waited in line to get into the venue.
The most watched speakers of the day included U.S. presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr, MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor , former CIA employee Edward Snowden , ARK Invest Cathie WoodCathie Wood , U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis , and Tim Scott, a senior Republican on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. Thousands of attendees flocked to the main stage just to catch a glimpse of the big guys.
Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Top Three BTC Strategies
US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. mentioned three things about his post-election strategy at the conference:
If elected president, he will sign an executive order requiring the United States to purchase 550 bitcoins per day to build a reserve of 4 million bitcoins. He said: "This will be a dominant position that no other country can usurp. Our country has about 19% of the world's gold reserves, and this policy will allow us to obtain about the same proportion of Bitcoin."
Signed an executive order directing the IRS to issue public guidance that all transactions between Bitcoin and U.S. dollars are non-reportable, tax-free transactions.
He will order the transfer of 200,000 Bitcoins to the U.S. Treasury to hold them as a strategic asset.
Robert Kennedy Jr. also said: "I don't represent the blue camp (Democratic Party), the red camp (Republican Party), or the purple camp (swing states), I represent the orange camp (the representative color of Bitcoin)."
Senator's Voice: Government should make it 'easy' to innovate in encryption
U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis spoke at the conference along with Senator Tim Scott.
Scott, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee who is expected to become the committee's next chairman, said at Friday's meeting that the government should make it "easy" for the cryptocurrency industry to innovate in the United States. Scott also joined Lummis in slamming SEC Chief Gary Gensler as an obstacle to crypto policy.
Tim Scott also discussed the possibility of using Bitcoin to create “Opportunity Zones,” hoping to provide tax-free investment opportunities for developers building infrastructure in underserved communities.
Lummis is a long-time ally of the cryptocurrency industry, and as Fox Business previously reported, Lummis has recently been pushing for a bill that would require the Federal Reserve to hold some Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset. However, Lummis did not mention the topic in her speech, saying: "Bitcoin's innovation is now becoming clearer in the U.S. Senate, and it's becoming clearer who wants to protect this innovation and who wants to regulate it."
Michael Saylor: By 2045, BTC could reach $49 million in a bull market scenario
BTC die-hard bull and MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor said in a speech that as adoption grows, Bitcoin's characteristics as digital capital may push the price of each Bitcoin to over $13 million by 2045.
He said: "By 2045, the price of Bitcoin will reach $13 million per coin. In a bear market scenario, the price of Bitcoin could reach $3 million. In a bull market scenario, the price of Bitcoin could reach $49 million."
Saylor often points to MicroStrategy's stock price as evidence of its success. So far this year, the company's shares have risen 155% to around $1,750, reaching a high of $1,919 in March.
“We will be 48 months down this road on August 10th of this year,” he said. “A lot of companies are trying to imitate chip maker Nvidia, but interestingly, it’s easier to imitate MicroStrategy. I’ve given you the playbook.”
Snowden warns: Some politicians are courting Bitcoin users for their own benefit
Snowden, who has lived in exile in Russia since 2013, spoke remotely from the Nakamoto main stage and addressed the politics that dominated the conference. Snowden said politicians were trying to win the "affection" of bitcoin users to pursue their own interests.
“They are not our tribe and they are not after the same things that we are after. They have their own interests, their own values and their own wants. Try to get what you need from them, but don’t give yourself to them completely, even if you have to vote for them,” he said.
Skybridge founder: Bitcoin market value will surpass gold
Skybridge founder Anthony Scaramucci has made a bold prediction about the future market value of Bitcoin, believing that the price of the asset could increase 10 times, surpassing gold.
“It’s an asset class, so it shouldn’t be comparable to the market cap of NVIDIA or Apple. It has to be comparable to the market cap of gold, and I think it’s better than gold,” he said.
Scaramucci , a Bitcoin supporter and investor, highlighted two important reasons why Bitcoin can rival gold in market value. Scaramucci said that more and more large institutions (both public and private) are making headlines for their holdings or investments in Bitcoin, such as:
"The mayor of Jersey City just said he's going to invest 2% of his pension in Bitcoin. The state of Wisconsin said they have $150 million in Bitcoin."
Scaramucci said that by 2025, asset managers may be discussing tactical asset allocation models for all institutional investors, with the goal of increasing Bitcoin investments by 1% to 3%.
Scaramucci recalled his days working on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs, adding that Wall Street could also play a big role in driving BTC investment.
“Wall Street is a great sales machine,” he said. “They get the product, pick up the phone, call the client, and explain to them why they need to have the product.”
Jan Van Eck : “Bitcoin is in my blood”
VanEck was one of the companies that successfully listed the first spot Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, and its CEO Jan van Eck said the move resonated with him personally.
He said: "I would say that Bitcoin is in my blood. The reason I say that is because VanEck was founded in 1955, but we also founded the first gold mutual fund in the United States in 1968, before the inflationary boom in the 1970s."
Robert Mitchnick, head of BlackRock digital assets, Jan Van Eck, CEO of VanEck, and Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, discussed their firms’ moves into cryptocurrency investment products.
The company’s CEO said the history coincides with a time when it was illegal for Americans to own gold bullion. His own family’s history also gave him a deep appreciation for the values advocated by supporters.
Jan van Eck said: “My mom is German, she was actually a refugee. She had to flee from the police who were trying to arrest my grandfather. So I understand why Bitcoin, I understand why freedom is important.”
Hougan also provided an interesting contrast between the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies and the early days of ETFs. Hougan said that 20 years ago, mainstream media outlets such as the Financial Times called these investment products “weapons of mass destruction”: “There were hearings in Congress saying ETFs were destroying the American dream, and people generally hated them. Fast forward to today. ETFs are worth over $10 trillion. They have been accepted by mainstream society.”
Hougan said that the shift to acceptance of disruptive ideas that people distrusted for years could happen again. “I think the same thing is happening with bitcoin right now,” he said.
source:
Author: BitpushNews Mary Liu
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