Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News. Nashville was the place
Speaker 1: to be this past weekend if you were a crypto enthusiast,
Speaker 1: and even if you're more of a skeptic.
Speaker 2: I'm in the exhibit hall at Bitcoin Nashville and now
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do a walkthrough of the Bitcoin art exhibit.
Speaker 2: Got cipher Punks of the world.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reporter Zeke Fox was in Music City at the
Speaker 1: site of the annual Bitcoin Conference taking it all in.
Speaker 2: So I'm standing a little close to it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: definitely the assassination attempt photo, the famous one with the
Speaker 2: Trump standing and saying fight. The artist statement it says, Bitcoin,
Speaker 2: like Donald Trump, has been a polarizing figure, villainized and
Speaker 2: criticized by many. The painting consists of thousands of dots
Speaker 2: made with the act from burnt Fiat banknotes.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 1: This wasn't his first time at one of these. Zeke
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Number Go Up, Inside Crypto's Wild
Speaker 1: Rise and Staggering Fall. But what was different about this
Speaker 1: year's Bitcoin conference was the lineup and who the headliner was.
Speaker 4: Hello Bitcoiners, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Hello, it's good to be with you. It's good to
Speaker 1: be with you, Former President Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: I'm thrilled to be here in Nashville to become the
Speaker 4: first American president ever to address a bitcoin event.
Speaker 1: Anywhere in the world, anywhere in the world. His appearance
Speaker 1: at the annual conference was something of a seminal moment
Speaker 1: for what had once been a fringe financial movement, and
Speaker 1: that wasn't lost on those who'd bought a ticket.
Speaker 5: I was generally excited because this is the first time
Speaker 5: where we are no longer some niche group of funny
Speaker 5: money or fraud money, as JP Morgan likes to call us,
Speaker 5: but we're We're at the center stage.
Speaker 6: I think it's a historical moment to, you know, have
Speaker 6: a presidential candidate that has very high chances of winning
Speaker 6: the you know, the elections, to come out here and
Speaker 6: try to wrangle votes from bitcoiners.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just Trump who was there. There was
Speaker 1: RFK Junior, as well as Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, a
Speaker 1: Republican who plans to introduce a major bill about crypto.
Speaker 1: In fact, ten senators were there and said it. Hopefuls
Speaker 1: like John Deeton, another Republican who's challenging Senator Elizabeth Warren
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. And we've seen that voting by crypto or
Speaker 1: bitcooling enthusiasts can make a difference. And so we're in
Speaker 1: an election year, so it.
Speaker 8: Doesn't surprise me that politicians are jumping.
Speaker 1: On warn but for Trump it's a bit Murkier is
Speaker 1: the forty fifth president of the United s States a
Speaker 1: crypto convert. Was he there to raise cash to court voters.
Speaker 7: I pledge to the bitcoin community that the day I
Speaker 7: take the oath of office, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris's anti
Speaker 7: crypto crusade.
Speaker 3: Will be over.
Speaker 1: It will end, It'll be done. It'll be done. This
Speaker 1: is the Big Take DC podcast from Bloomberg News. I'm
Speaker 1: David Gura. On today's episode, Trump's conversion from crypto skeptic
Speaker 1: to crypto enthusiast and the impact that could have on
Speaker 1: the presidential race and his campaign coffers.
Speaker 2: I don't even want to count how many crypto conferences
Speaker 2: I've been to.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg investigative reporter Zeke Fox has been to a lot
Speaker 1: of crypto conferences. In fact, this was his third time
Speaker 1: at this particular event, which is focused exclusively on bitcoin.
Speaker 2: So this conference is it's the Bitcoin conference. It's actually
Speaker 2: I believe a rule that you can't mention other coins
Speaker 2: while they're on stage.
Speaker 1: Since he's been going to the Bitcoin Conference, the industry
Speaker 1: has changed dramatically. His first time was back in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. It was in Miami, and Zeke says the
Speaker 1: atmosphere was euphoric.
Speaker 2: Crypto was booming, and there was this sense that riches
Speaker 2: were around the corner for anyone if they really set
Speaker 2: their mind to it.
Speaker 1: But this year, even though bitcoin prices are higher than
Speaker 1: they were in twenty twenty one, he says, the feeling
Speaker 1: at this conference was more muted.
Speaker 2: I felt like this was a more subdued crowd and
Speaker 2: that the people here were frankly, not as excited as
Speaker 2: I expected that they had gotten Trump to come speak
Speaker 2: to them and endorse their favorite thing, bitcoin.
Speaker 1: Zeke spoke to a lot of bitcoin enthusiasts in Nashville
Speaker 1: trying to get a sense of how they felt about Trump.
Speaker 2: I was walking around the exhibit hall and I saw
Speaker 2: a man sitting under there was like a giant wizard
Speaker 2: hat suspended from the ceiling that covered a seating area
Speaker 2: that was advertising this wizard themed bitcoin project. And I
Speaker 2: saw a guy sitting there with a couple of patchwork
Speaker 2: quilts that were very pretty, and I sat down and
Speaker 2: introduced myself. So could you introduce yourself? Like, where are
Speaker 2: you from?
Speaker 6: What's your name?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 2: My name is Can I just go buy a name
Speaker 2: if you? If you, if you prefer it's okay, okay.
Speaker 2: Can you write colonel Colonel Stacker? How do you? It's
Speaker 2: like it is the second colonel with a K.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Colonel Colonel Stacker is obviously not his real name,
Speaker 1: but he told Zeke he was a truck driver from
Speaker 1: Cincinnati who makes and sells bitcoin quilts with his mom.
Speaker 2: This looks really nice. Do you make them yourself?
Speaker 3: My mom is the quilter.
Speaker 8: Do the I do.
Speaker 9: I'm learning how to stitch right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bitcoin quilts and pseudonyms aside. Ohio is of course
Speaker 1: a critical state in the upcoming presidential election, so Zeke
Speaker 1: asked the colonel what role, if any, Bitcoin is playing
Speaker 1: in who he votes for.
Speaker 2: Did you in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty did you
Speaker 2: vote for Trump? Back then?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: You go Democrat or third party.
Speaker 9: Or I've always been like if anything libertarian US.
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do you think you'll vote for Trump this time. It's
Speaker 2: a possibility. Yeah, I just might.
Speaker 1: According to Zeke, this was a pretty common view.
Speaker 2: Everyone I spoke to would ask them, what do you
Speaker 2: think about Trump's coming to speak here? Are you excited?
Speaker 2: Does this change what you think of him? And frankly,
Speaker 2: most PEO either already supported Trump and now would continue
Speaker 2: to support him, or already supported RFK Junior and we're
Speaker 2: planning to continue to support him, but open to maybe
Speaker 2: switching to Trump if they thought, you know, it is
Speaker 2: a close election, maybe you've got to be pragmatic.
Speaker 9: I mean, we've got Kennedy Bay, so would that be
Speaker 9: a wasted vote?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 2: That's kind of where I'm at.
Speaker 1: So I guess Trump's the only choice.
Speaker 9: So I'm on the realm where I don't mind if
Speaker 9: RFK or Trump wins as long as Biden I guess, now, Kamala,
Speaker 9: those are RFK and Trump are in my book, I'd
Speaker 9: be happy with either candidate.
Speaker 2: Are you going to vote for Trump this time?
Speaker 5: You know, I don't know, But at the moment, I'm
Speaker 5: voting for whatever the most bitcoin candidate is.
Speaker 1: But if the attendees were luke warm, the big surprise
Speaker 1: was just how pro crypto the former president was when
Speaker 1: he addressed the crowd.
Speaker 2: So I've never been to a Trump rally before, and
Speaker 2: I was kind of impressed with how well he worked
Speaker 2: the audience.
Speaker 7: This afternoon, I'm laying out my plan to ensure that
Speaker 7: the United States will be the crypto capital of the
Speaker 7: planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world, and we'll
Speaker 7: get it done.
Speaker 2: Kid Rock got a shout out, and also all the
Speaker 2: bitcoinners who are now supporting him, So the Winklevoss twins.
Speaker 2: He talked about how handsome they were.
Speaker 1: These are great guys.
Speaker 7: They look like mail models with a brain, you know,
Speaker 7: the mail models with a big, beautiful brain.
Speaker 2: The biggest applause line for Trump was he said that
Speaker 2: he would fire Gary Gensler, the head of the SEC.
Speaker 2: Under his watch, the SEC has sued a number of
Speaker 2: crypto companies.
Speaker 1: One day, one I.
Speaker 7: Will fire Gary Gensler in a point.
Speaker 1: I knew SEC chair.
Speaker 2: And this line was so successful that after he got
Speaker 2: some applause for it, he actually was like, oh, guys
Speaker 2: really liked that one. So he said it again.
Speaker 3: I didn't know you was that unpopular. Well, I didn't
Speaker 3: know you was that unpopular.
Speaker 1: Let me say it again.
Speaker 3: On day one, I will fire Gary against me.
Speaker 2: He said, you know, if bitcoin's going to the moon,
Speaker 2: the US should lead the way. He said, you know,
Speaker 2: we can't let China dominate this industry, which is kind
Speaker 2: of weird because China has actually made moves to ban
Speaker 2: the crypto industry. But the big thing that Trump announced
Speaker 2: at the end was that the US will establish a
Speaker 2: strategic Bitcoin reserve that if.
Speaker 7: I am elected, it will be the policy of my
Speaker 7: administration United States of America to keep one hundred percent
Speaker 7: of all the bitcoin the US.
Speaker 1: Government currently hals or acquires into the future.
Speaker 3: We'll keep one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I hope you do well.
Speaker 4: Please.
Speaker 2: There was no talk of sam bankmin freed FTX, all
Speaker 2: the crypto scams that we've seen in the last couple
Speaker 2: of years, like even these bitcoinners would tell you there
Speaker 2: was like a million scams. If anything, the enforcement should
Speaker 2: have been quicker. You know, we should be saying, why
Speaker 2: didn't you stop all these crypto scams? But none of that, no,
Speaker 2: none of that. I was impressed by how successful the
Speaker 2: bitcoin industry was at getting Trump on their side. He
Speaker 2: really said a lot of the things that they would
Speaker 2: have wanted him to say.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break. Inside Trump's transformation from crypto
Speaker 1: skeptic to crypto enthusiast and what that means for the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four US presidential race. When Donald Trump was
Speaker 1: in the White House, he wasn't a bitcoin booster. Far
Speaker 1: from it. But Trump's attitude changed in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: Hello everyone, this is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president
Speaker 4: of all time, better than Lincoln, better than Washington. With
Speaker 4: an important announcement to make, I'm doing my first official
Speaker 4: Donald J. Trump NFT collection right here and right now.
Speaker 4: They're called Trump Digital Trading Cards.
Speaker 1: Trump recognized there was money to be made in crypto,
Speaker 1: and part of his pitch was if you bought one
Speaker 1: of those non fungible tokens, you'd get a chance to
Speaker 1: meet us.
Speaker 4: Here's one of the best parts. Each card comes with
Speaker 4: an automatic chance to win amazing prizes like dinner with me.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's an amazing prize, but it's.
Speaker 6: What we have.
Speaker 1: Each of those NFTs cost ninety nine bucks and they
Speaker 1: sold out in Bloomberg. Zeke Fox says Trump made good
Speaker 1: on at least one of those amazing prizes he teased
Speaker 1: in that ad.
Speaker 2: So a few months ago, there was this big gathering
Speaker 2: of people who bought the Trump cards at mar Lago.
Speaker 2: Trump was there and he said some nicer things about crypto,
Speaker 2: and I think was pleased by the response.
Speaker 1: In the months that followed, Trump held another crypto get
Speaker 1: together at his club in South Florida with bitcoin miners,
Speaker 1: and according to Zeke, he listened as they talked about
Speaker 1: the industry.
Speaker 2: Some people have been throwing out this idea that this
Speaker 2: is a way to win votes. I am unconvinced.
Speaker 1: But according to Zeke, that was the message. On stage
Speaker 1: in Nashville, Trump, RFK Junior, and a handful of lawmakers
Speaker 1: appealed to the crypto community for their votes as they
Speaker 1: criticized the current president for not embracing what they see
Speaker 1: as the future of finance. And interestingly, Zeke says several
Speaker 1: of the conference goers he talked to said they were
Speaker 1: reserving judgment on Vice President Harris.
Speaker 2: There's been no word from her campaign officially about what
Speaker 2: she thinks about crypto.
Speaker 1: In recent days, there have been reports Harris's campaign has
Speaker 1: reached out to prominent players in the world of crypto,
Speaker 1: and there's bipartisan pressure for her to embrace the crypto
Speaker 1: community as a potentially decisive voting block.
Speaker 2: A group of Democrats sent a letter to Harris saying
Speaker 2: that crypto was on the top of voters' minds in
Speaker 2: swing states and that they Harris should get with the program.
Speaker 2: I just think that's really unlikely, and that honestly, the
Speaker 2: average person you ask them about crypto has a low
Speaker 2: opinion of crypto but doesn't care that much.
Speaker 1: Zeke left the Bitcoin conference in Nashville with a sense
Speaker 1: that just as Donald Trump's attitude toward crypto has changed,
Speaker 1: there's also been an evolution in bitcoin.
Speaker 2: More broadly, It's supposed to be a way to resist censorship,
Speaker 2: resist this this idea that somehow it needs the state
Speaker 2: is anesthetical to its origins, and I was kind of
Speaker 2: expecting to meet more people at the conference who felt
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: But Zeke says that anti government, anti establishment ethos has
Speaker 1: started to fade now. Some of its biggest proponents are
Speaker 1: counttowing to political candidates, and they're suggesting the US government
Speaker 1: should hold millions of dollars worth of bitcoin. Zeke wonders
Speaker 1: if Trump's decision to embrace crypto has anything to do
Speaker 1: with that philosophy, or if his calculus is much simpler.
Speaker 2: A lot of industries want you to take controversial positions
Speaker 2: in exchange for their support. With bitcoiners, you just have
Speaker 2: to say nice things about bitcoin and they'll write you
Speaker 2: a check. So, in my opinion, it's kind of an
Speaker 2: easy way to raise some money.
Speaker 1: Which is exactly what happened in Nashville. Trump spoke, He
Speaker 1: railed against regulation, He spoke admiringly of crypto's potential, how
Speaker 1: the price of bitcoin is rising to almost seventy thousand
Speaker 1: dollars on Monday, not far from its record high, and
Speaker 1: Trump went to a fundraiser where tickets cost more than
Speaker 1: eight hundred grand each.
Speaker 2: Numbers being thrown around at this fundraiser could have raised
Speaker 2: thirty or fifty million.
Speaker 1: According to a Bloomberg analysis, crypto donors have given more
Speaker 1: money this cycle than in all the past ones put together,
Speaker 1: and that's before this weekend's haul. Zeke spoke to Mike Belshie,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Bitco, who's hosting a fundraising dinner with
Speaker 1: Trump's running mate, Senator j d Vance on Monday. Thirty
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars gets you a seat. Twenty five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars secures you a place on a round table. But
Speaker 1: Belchie says he's not just courting Republicans.
Speaker 8: So you know, there's this phrase, and I don't know
Speaker 8: who it's attributed to, but you know, first they ignore you,
Speaker 8: then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and
Speaker 8: then you win. And I think for bitcoin, we're somewhere
Speaker 8: in between those last two stages, right and those people
Speaker 8: in the Republican Party that don't think cryptos a good idea.
Speaker 8: There's people in the prat A Party that don't think
Speaker 8: crypto is a good idea, but that doesn't mean that
Speaker 8: the party thinks that it's a bad idea. And I
Speaker 8: think what we're seeing is that shift. Right now, Kamala
Speaker 8: Harris is going to come out total pro crypto to
Speaker 8: try to diffuse any advantage that Trump may have with it,
Speaker 8: you know, with being for pro crypto.
Speaker 1: But for those in attendance at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville,
Speaker 1: should Trump win or lose, they believe in one thing, fervently,
Speaker 1: that Bitcoin's price can only do one thing, go up.
Speaker 5: When you look at the blockchain and where this thing's
Speaker 5: going with bitcoin, and now with Trump's support it and
Speaker 5: all these politicians getting behind it, how can you not believe.
Speaker 1: I always said and when I first got into bitcoin,
Speaker 1: if I could ever, if they'll politics and crypto can
Speaker 1: kind of collide together and I can make an impact
Speaker 1: in regards.
Speaker 6: To that, that would be a dream come true.
Speaker 2: It's coming true.
Speaker 7: Thank you all. Have a good time with you a
Speaker 7: bitcoin and you're crypto and everything else that you're.
Speaker 4: Playing with Cat, We're going to make that one of
Speaker 4: the greatest industry.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The Big Take DC podcast from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Thomas Leu and Alex Sagura, who also mixed this episode.
Speaker 1: It was fact checked by Adriana Tapia. Our senior producers
Speaker 1: are Naomi Shaven and Kim Gittelson, who also edited this
Speaker 1: episode with Mike Reagan. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
Speaker 1: Nicole Beamster bor is. Our executive producer Sage Bauman is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Please
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