Trump: "I WILL NOT SELL ANY US GOV BITCOIN" | Bitcoin News by CoinCorner

Transcript

Bullish news only this week as we follow the top speakers from the Bitcoin conference. A major Italian supercar manufacturer announces plans to accept Bitcoin for payments, and Russia relaxes its stance on crypto by announcing plans to allow the use of Bitcoin for global payments.

This week, Bitcoin's price is remaining strong following the highly anticipated Bitcoin conference, which took place at the end of last week. Over the three days, we saw the price rally by around 10%, which has since been given back, but we're seeing consolidation between $64,000 and $68,000 per coin.

Donald Trump's highly awaited keynote came on Saturday, where he reinforced his pro-Bitcoin and crypto stance. In his speech, the former president, if elected, vowed to make the United States the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world. He said on day one he would fire Gary Gensler, Biden's appointed chair of the SEC, who, whilst in the position, has been fairly negative towards the industry. He would also create a Bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council so that the laws and rules can be written by people who love the industry, not hate it. But most notably, he said if he returned to the White House, he would not violate the cardinal rule that every Bitcoiner knows by heart: "Never sell your Bitcoin," and he would stop the federal government from selling its current Bitcoin holdings.

Now, Trump's speech, although very positive, fell a little flat as he followed independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., who spoke the day before on Friday and had a much more extreme stance on Bitcoin. During his speech, RFK Jr. pledged to purchase a whopping 4 million Bitcoins for the US government if elected president. In Kennedy's plan, he wants the US Treasury to purchase 550 Bitcoin daily until the US amasses a reserve totalling almost 20% of the entire Bitcoin supply. This move, he promised, would effectively make Bitcoin an asset worth hundreds of trillions of dollars. He also added that Bitcoin transactions and exchanging Bitcoin would become non-taxable events, integrating the asset into the national economy.

Now, as exciting as this is, currently Kennedy is polling around 10% of the votes, so the chances of these proposals becoming a reality may be somewhat unrealistic.

Also making headlines at the conference was US Senator of Wyoming, Cynthia Lummis, who announced a bill for the US Treasury to buy 1 million Bitcoin, worth around $68 billion. The bill intends to help combat the US government's debt by using Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset to back the US dollar. This is based on the anticipation that the hard asset will grow in value rather than decline, in a similar way to how they hold gold and oil. The plan is to buy the Bitcoin over a 5-year period, self-custody it in a variety of geographical locations, and hold the asset for at least 20 years unless the tokens are sold to reduce the government debt. According to their modelling, this move could be an absolute game-changer for the mess the United States has gotten itself into with its debt, which is now topping over $35 trillion.

Our next story is coming from the University of Wyoming, which is launching a Bitcoin Research Institute aiming to mitigate the spread of misinformation surrounding the industry. Bitcoin activist and associate professor at the University, Bradley Rettler, announced the project in a post on X and will serve as a director. Rettler described the need for such an institute, stating that the current state of Bitcoin research is so poor and the industry needs more high-quality peer-reviewed publications to ensure the public is properly informed about what Bitcoin is and how it works.

One study that would have benefited from such a review was a study led by the University of Hawaii, which claimed that Bitcoin emissions alone could increase global warming by 2 C by 2048. However, according to Rettler, they failed to account for the difficulty adjustment when mining and didn't know that there was a block size cap, rendering the data somewhat invalid.

Now, shifting gears, last week, Italian supercar manufacturer Ferrari announced that as of July 2024, they would be accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency payments for their luxury cars in Europe. This builds on the success of introducing Bitcoin as a method of payment first in the US less than a year ago, where they plan to support dealers and address the evolving needs of their clients. The innovative decision aligns with Ferrari's broader strategy to embrace cutting-edge technology, and the choice from such a prestigious brand could have a ripple effect across the luxury car industry, where we could see other manufacturers following in their footsteps but that all remains to be seen.

More bullish news is coming from the Michigan State Pension Fund, which has become the second confirmed US retirement system to make an allocation to Bitcoin. Within the state pension fund, managing around $143.99 billion worth of capital for state employees' pensions, it was disclosed that they have made a $6.6 million investment into ARK Invest's Bitcoin ETF. This investment makes up around a 4.5% allocation of the total portfolio and is potentially a sign that Bitcoin is slowly beginning to attract traditional institutional investors with more conviction than just a speculative 1% bet.

Now, our final story is coming from Russia, which on Tuesday approved a new law permitting the use of cryptocurrency for international payments as the country faces ongoing financial pressure from Western sanctions. Back in January 2022, the Russian central bank proposed banning the use of crypto for transactions as well as mining digital currencies, generally maintaining a hostile stance on the industry. But following Russia's invasion of Ukraine later that year, the US, UK, EU, and others imposed sanctions on Russia to inhibit their ability to transact in the global economy, which has led them to change their stance on Bitcoin and crypto.

Mati Greenspan, CEO of Quantum Economics, said, "Russia warming to crypto made sense as Bitcoin transactions cannot be censored or blocked by any government or bank." However, it is particularly interesting, as previously Russia would not want to allow that kind of transactional freedom to its citizens. But now, we're at the point that Bitcoin is used so often in everyday commerce that the opportunity cost for them not to allow it is simply too great.