JAKARTA – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said at a Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, that the United States should dominate the cryptocurrency or China sector would. This statement is Trump’s latest move to attract support from cryptocurrency enthusiasts, although he previously called it a “fraud.”

In his speech, Trump claimed to make the US a global leader in cryptocurrencies and adopt more friendly regulations compared to the likely Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump stated that if the US does not take advantage of crypto and bitcoin technology, other countries, including China, will take over the dominance of this sector.

“If we don’t take advantage of crypto and bitcoin technology, China will do it, other countries will do it. They will dominate, and we can’t let China dominate. They’ve made too much progress,” Trump said.

Although China has imposed a crackdown on cryptocurrencies and has strict control over capital movement, token trading like bitcoin is still possible on crypto exchanges and Chinese investors can also open overseas bank accounts to buy crypto assets.

Trump also said that he would form a crypto presidential advisory board and create a national “stok” of bitcoin using cryptocurrencies currently owned by the US government, which are mostly obtained through law enforcement measures. “Never sell your bitcoin,” Trump stressed. “If I am elected, it will be my administrative policy to keep 100% of all bitcoins owned or obtained by the US government in the future.”

The price of bitcoin had dropped after Trump’s speech, but then rebounded and was last quoted for rising 0.94% to 68,182 dollars. Trump also repeated his intention to reduce Ross Ulbricht’s sentence, who is currently serving a life sentence for creating and operating the Silk Road site that allows users to buy and sell other illegal drugs and products in secret.

Although Trump sees cryptocurrencies as “fraud” in 2021, he now supports the expansion of bitcoin mining by US companies. Crypto lawyers were surprised by Trump’s proposal to create strategic bitcoin reserves, calling it an “extraordinary voice of trust.”

Meanwhile, crypto executives are annoyed by law enforcement actions from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under President Joe Biden, who claims that several crypto companies, including Coinbase and Binance, facilitate digital asset trading that should be listed as securities.

A group of nearly 30 congressmen and Democratic candidates sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee and Harris, urging them to take a “future” approach to digital assets. They stressed that crypto technology and blockchain have a major impact in ensuring victory in various elections

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