The United States must dominate the cryptocurrency sector or China will, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has said and also urged the people to "never sell" their bitcoins.
Addressing the Bitcoin 2024 convention in Tennessee Nashville on Saturday, Trump said he would make the US the world's cryptocurrency leader and welcome friendlier regulations than the likely Democratic nominee, according to Reuters.
The Republican party has promised not to impose heavy regulations on crypto, and the party's presidential candidate also criticised Democrats for trying to regulate the sector,
"If we don't embrace crypto and bitcoin technology, China will, other countries will. They'll dominate, and we cannot let China dominate. They are making too much progress as it is," Trump said.
The former Us president also stated that he would create a crypto-presidential advisory council and form a national stockpile of bitcoin.
"Never sell your bitcoin. If I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration, the United States of America, to keep 100 per cent of all the bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires into the future," he added.
Trump also said that he wanted to see expanded bitcoin mining by US firms, even though he had dismissed bitcoin as a scam in 2021.
After Trump's speech, the price of Bitcoin went down, but then again rebounded and was last quoted up 0.94 per cent at $68,182.
Countries around the world, including the US, were concerned that privately operated highly volatile digital currencies have the potential to undermine government control of the financial and monetary systems, increase systemic risk, promote financial crime, and hurt investors.
Jack Mallers, CEO of global bitcoin app Strike, told Reuters that Trump's proposal to form a strategic bitcoin reserve was an "unbelievable vote of confidence."
Meanwhile, crypto executives are unhappy with the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement actions under US President Joe Biden.
The agency has alleged that several crypto companies such as Coinbase and Binance, facilitate the trading of digital assets on their platform that should have been registered as securities. However, these allegations are denied by the firms.
A group of nearly 30 Democratic lawmakers and Congressional candidates recently wrote a letter to the Democratic National Committee and Harris to take a "forward-looking" approach to digital assets.
"From an electoral standpoint, crypto and blockchain technologies have an outsized impact in ensuring victories up and down the ballot," they wrote in the letter.
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