Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who is campaigning for the upcoming presidential election, has expressed his support for bitcoin miners, promising to advocate for their interests in the White House.
Trump met with representatives from the U.S. bitcoin mining industry on Tuesday in his latest move to woo the bitcoin and crypto community. According to a report from Bloomberg, Trump told the group of attendees that he understands the role of bitcoin mining in stabilizing the energy grid and that he would advocate for bitcoin miners in the White House.
Following the meeting, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that bitcoin mining may be the last line of defense against a central bank digital currency, adding:
“Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin only helps China, Russia, and the Radical Communist Left. We want all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE USA!!! It will help us be ENERGY DOMINANT!!!”
Organized by Bitcoin Magazine, the gathering included notable executives from the bitcoin mining sector such as Zach Bradford and Matthew Schultz from CleanSpark, Jason Les and Brian Morgenstern from Riot, Salman Khan of Marathon, and Amanda Fabiano of Fabiano Consulting, who is also an independent director at Terawulf and the former head of mining at Galaxy Digital.
In an op-ed for Bitcoin Magazine, Morgenstern went as far as saying that “President Trump will protect your right to own Bitcoin, to mine Bitcoin, to transact with Bitcoin, and for many of us, to work in the Bitcoin industry.”
In a related move, Trump recently pledged at a Libertarian Party Convention to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht if he were elected. Additionally, he is now accepting crypto donations, a significant shift from his 2019 stance during his first term when he described the value of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as “based on thin air.”