One in four Americans owns Bitcoin.
That’s more than the number of Americans over the age of 65. But how often do you hear candidates talking about senior citizen concerns compared to the concerns of cryptocurrency owners?
President Donald Trump has been making a concerted effort during his 2024 election campaign to attract Bitcoin users.
At the recent Libertarian National Convention, President Trump pledged to “stop Joe Biden’s campaign to crush cryptocurrencies” and specifically affirmed his support for custody rights for Bitcoin holders.
“I say this through your vote,” President Trump said. “I will keep Elizabeth Warren and her followers away from Bitcoin and will never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency,” he said.
It is clear which candidate is the best choice for Bitcoin owners and the industry as a whole this November. This is President Trump. He seems to see the wisdom of the pro-Bitcoin stance taken by prominent leaders around the world, such as President Javier Millais of Argentina and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador.
In this regard, he is presenting a clear position.
Trump recognizes our right to self-determination, and perhaps no one understands the value of decentralization better as people are losing trust in institutions like government and banks. Trump has been targeted by unprecedented laws politicizing the judicial system, and Trump-linked organizations have been debanked and deplatformed.
Meanwhile, in the name of “consumer protection,” President Biden has vetoed legislation that would have guaranteed customers’ rights to have their bitcoins or other digital assets stored by regulated financial institutions, which he favors.
The Biden administration has been extremely hostile to Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem. The administration launched “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” which effectively enacted new rules directing banks to stop doing business with companies in the digital asset space, regulators said in a press release. Additionally, the White House has proposed a 30% tax on the energy used to mine Bitcoin, which would make it unprofitable and downright uneconomical for the industry to do business in the United States. The Energy Department has also attempted to collect information about Bitcoin miners’ energy contracts in a bid to regulate them out of business. The Justice Department went so far as to break with long-standing Treasury Department guidance by attempting to regulate self-hosted wallets through court filings, saying they should be treated as money transfer businesses. This is all by design. They want to effectively ban the industry.
When you consider that the Biden administration has laid the groundwork for a central bank digital currency, it all starts to make sense.
Some politicians support the creation of a CBDC because they want total control. They want to track our transactions and tell us how we can and cannot spend our money. Bitcoin represents the exact opposite: freedom from government-led collectivism and individual empowerment.
To be clear, there are many leaders in the Democratic Party who support Bitcoin, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Representative Ritchie Torres, and Representative Wiley Nickel. More than 70 Democrats recently voted for favorable market structure legislation in the House of Representatives. But more is needed.
President Biden has handed the administration’s reign on these issues to self-described “anti-crypto” senator Elizabeth Warren and her followers. This has resulted in policies that mirror the Chinese Communist Party’s approach to Bitcoin, all policies that the ruling party disapproves of. That means cutting off financial services, trying to block access to energy in the name of protecting the environment, and imposing impossible market regulations. They try everything they can to disrupt the Bitcoin network while working towards CBDC, the ultimate tool to control the masses.
Senator Warren has even proposed legislation that would effectively ban Bitcoin mining in the United States by treating miners the same as financial institutions by requiring anti-money laundering standards despite the fact that miners do not control customer assets. As she well knows, without Bitcoin miners there are no Bitcoin transactions, and the road to a CBDC would be much easier without private alternatives.
The good news for Bitcoin users this November is that there is a clear alternative. This is important because as many as a third of voters say they are weighing a candidate’s views on digital assets for their election choices.
The choice is clear. President Trump will protect the rights of many of us to own Bitcoin, mine Bitcoin, transact with Bitcoin, and work in the Bitcoin industry. We believe he will support the ability of Bitcoin miners to revolutionize America’s financial and energy industries and sustain America’s economic leadership for the future. And he will ban CBDCs, protect our right to self-governance, and stop out-of-control regulators from trying to put us out of business. If you are a Bitcoin investor, President Trump is the best candidate this year to make Bitcoin great again in the eyes of the US government.
Brian Morgenstern is the head of public policy at Riot Platforms. He previously served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Deputy White House Press Secretary.
This is a guest post by Brian Morgenstern. The opinions expressed are solely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.