Donald Trump has doubled down on his embrace of cryptocurrencies as he hosted top industry players at the White House, while making investments in the field.
"Last year, I promised to make America the bitcoin superpower of the world and crypto capital of the planet, and we're taking historic action to deliver on that promise," Trump told the assembled room of executives.
US crypto investors were major supporters of Trump's presidential campaign, contributing millions of dollars toward his victory in hopes of ending the deep skepticism of the previous Democratic administration toward digital currencies.
Once hostile to the crypto industry, Trump has already taken significant steps to clear regulatory hurdles and has money invested.
Trump has partnered with exchange platform World Liberty Financial and launched the "Trump" memecoin in January.
First Lady Melania Trump announced a memecoin of her own, $MELANIA, one day before her husband's January 20 inauguration.
The prominent founders, CEOs and investors, along with members of a Trump working group, assembled Friday to help craft policies aimed at accelerating crypto growth.
On the eve of the event, Trump signed an executive order establishing a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" that would audit the government's bitcoin reserves, which were mainly accumulated by law enforcement from judicial seizures.
"Unfortunately, in recent years, the US government has foolishly sold tens of thousands of additional bitcoin that were worth billions and billions of dollars had they not sold them," Trump said in his opening remarks.
"From this day on, America will follow the rule that every bitcoin investor knows very well: never sell your bitcoin."
Crypto czar targets Biden
Bitcoin, the world's most traded cryptocurrency, is heralded by advocates as a substitute for gold or a hedge against currency devaluation and political instability.
Trump donor and Silicon Valley investor David Sacks, the administration's "crypto czar," said that if previous administrations had held onto their digital holdings over the past decade, rather than selling them, they would be worth $17 billion today.
The summit's guest list included twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, founders of crypto platform Gemini, as well as Brian Armstrong of Coinbase and Michael Saylor, the boss of major Bitcoin investor MicroStrategy.
In a gesture to the industry, Trump has already appointed crypto advocate Paul Atkins to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Under Atkins, the SEC has dropped legal proceedings against major platforms like Coinbase and Kraken that were initiated during former president Joe Biden's term.
