Trump met with officials from Riot Platform and Cleanspark Inc., two Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining companies, on Tuesday morning.
- Donald Trump intends to mine all remaining Bitcoin in the US.
- The Republican presidential candidate views Bitcoin as the last line of defense against central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
He made the comments on his alt-tech social media network, Truth Social, after meeting with Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey and executives from publicly traded Bitcoin miners Cleanspark, Riot Platform, and Marathon Digital. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, he made a promise last night and made another appeal to the US cryptocurrency sector.
According to recent surveys, Trump is leading President Joe Biden by a small margin, with 41% of voters supporting him, while the incumbent president has the support of 40% of voters. Additionally, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to receive 9% of the vote in surveys.
In his tweet, Trump also mentioned that having the United States produce the remaining Bitcoin would help the country become “energy dominant” and that it “could be our last line of defense against CBDCs.”
If re-elected, Trump has promised to “never allow” CBDCs, but he did not explain why promoting Bitcoin mining could prevent the development of a digital currency used by central banks. The digital version of fiat money known as CBDCs has caused much controversy in the cryptocurrency industry as central banks everywhere are considering whether to issue them.
With regard to promoting US dominance in Bitcoin mining, it is possible that Trump’s intention was to grant the US a larger share of the network’s hashrate. The Chain Bulletin reports that 38% of the world’s Bitcoin hashrate is now located in the United States.
Canada has 5.5% of the total hashrate, while China has 21%, making them the next closest rival.
Trump hopes to increase the hashrate in the United States, but this will not prevent miners from working abroad and getting paid in Bitcoin. So far, miners have received payments of about 94% of the 21 million supply of Bitcoin as compensation for processing network transaction blocks.
There have previously been campaigns to encourage greater use and increase the percentage of “American” Bitcoin.
The Chamber of Digital Commerce gave each member of Congress $50 worth of Bitcoin in 2020. The Bitcoin used in the promotional hoax was mined by Core Scientific, a mining hardware firm based in the United States. Core Scientific provided Bitcoin miners from North Carolina and Kentucky to the mining pool Luxor, whose servers are located in Iowa.
