The former president has pledged to create a bitcoin “strategic reserve” if he wins in November

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pledged to make America “the crypto capital of the planet” if he returns to the White House. Speaking at this year’s Bitcoin Conference in Nashville on Saturday, Trump said that crypto is essential to his vision of America in the future.

He pledged to ensure that the US government never sells off its bitcoin holdings and creates a bitcoin “strategic reserve,” predicting that the cryptocurrency could one day eclipse gold’s $16 trillion market capitalization.

“For too long our government has violated the cardinal rule that every bitcoiner knows by heart: Never sell your bitcoin… This afternoon I’m laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world, and we’ll get it done,” Trump vowed.

“If I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration… to keep 100% of all the bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires into the future. This will serve, in effect, as the core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile,” he stated.

READ MORE: Trump leads Harris – polls

Trump, who in 2019 wrote on social media that bitcoin’s value is “based on thin air” and in 2021 warned that cryptocurrencies were a “disaster waiting to happen,” made a U-turn in his rhetoric early in the current election campaign. In May, his campaign began accepting donations in cryptocurrency.

In Nashville, Trump promised that if he is in office the US “will have regulations” on crypto, but “from now on the rules will be written by people who love [crypto] industry, not hate [it].”

If bitcoin is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the US… If bitcoin is going to the moon, I want America to lead the way.

Throughout the speech, Trump repeatedly contrasted his support of cryptocurrency with the current Washington administration’s efforts to “block” the industry, adding that he finds repression of crypto and bitcoin “really bad for our country” and “quite un-American.”

According to a report by Forbes, citing official data, the US currently holds around 212,000 seized bitcoins worth some $15 billion. Shortly after Trump’s speech, Wyoming senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican, proposed a bill that would charge the US Treasury with amassing an official federal reserve of 1 million bitcoins, worth roughly $70 billion, over a period of five years.

READ MORE: Bitcoin under pressure over defunct Mt. Gox repayments – CNBC

Ahead of Trump’s speech, Michael Saylor, the founder of the software company MicroStrategy, predicted the price of bitcoin would surge to $49 million per token by 2045, bringing its market capitalization to almost $100 trillion.