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Donald Trump just doubled down on his big presidential Bitcoin campaign, potentially planning to do more with the asset than he told the crowd at the Bitcoin conference. Beyond establishing a “strategic Bitcoin stockpile,” the candidate suggested using the leading digital asset to make America solvent again.
“Who knows, maybe we’ll pay off our $35 trillion [in debt],” Trump said during an interview with Maria Bartiromo of FOX Business on Thursday.
“Hand ‘em a little crypto check, right? We’ll hand ‘em a little Bitcoin, and wipe out our $35 trillion,” he continued.
It’s unlikely the U.S. would be able to do so—at least at Bitcoin’s current price. The total market cap of all Bitcoin in circulation is $1.2 trillion, and the federal government holds a tiny fraction of that, worth about $13 billion, according to Arkham Intelligence. Indeed, the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted Trump's Bitcoin remarks on Twitter without comment.
Trump: Maybe we’ll pay off our $35 trillion debt by handing them a little crypto check, handing them a bitcoin pic.twitter.com/oBFiNtW7dX
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 2, 2024
Even so, Trump’s comments are highly reminiscent of a new bill from Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), proposing that the United States invest in BTC to pay down its debt in the long run. The legislation would both establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve and permit the U.S. Treasury to acquire 1 million BTC over the course of five years.
Lummis unveiled the bill at Bitcoin 2024, where Trump promised to establish a Bitcoin stockpile. However, he’d never explicitly endorsed the government using BTC to handle its debt crisis until today.
“It’s already prominent,” Trump added, claiming that loose regulations have allowed crypto to grow and become more widely adopted in the United States. “It is a different form of a currency, and it’s gonna end up benefitting the country.”
Trump also credited people involved with crypto as being “very smart,” and the surrounding movement as “intellectually high level”—unlike his political counterparts who are less fond of the industry. “Biden doesn’t have the intellect to shut it down, he has no idea what the hell it is,” he said.
The Biden administration has previously vetoed pro-crypto legislation, and proposed a 30% excise tax on Bitcoin miners, making him an enemy of many Bitcoiners.
Vice President Harris, who is now running against Trump in the 2024 election, has virtually no history of speaking about crypto—although some Democrats suggest she will be more favorable to crypto than Biden was.
“If we don’t embrace it, it’s gonna be embraced by other people,” Trump said. “It’s a massive thing already.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.