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JD Vance has hailed the arrival of cryptocurrencies into the US economy’s “mainstream”, vowed to establish “pro-innovation” rules for digital assets, and praised the crypto billionaires who backed Donald Trump’s White House bid last year.
Speaking to thousands of orange-clad bitcoin investors in Las Vegas on Wednesday, the US vice-president touted the emergence of crypto, and predicted that the number of Americans holding bitcoin would soon double.
“This is a movement — and I’m proud to stand with you here today,” said Vance from a stage named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous developer of bitcoin, in the Venetian hotel.
“We want our fellow Americans to know that crypto and digital assets, and particularly bitcoin, are part of the mainstream economy and are here to stay.”
Vance said that the Trump administration would swiftly enact a regulatory framework for tokens tied to the dollar. Its next priority would be to create a “transparent and tailored regulatory framework for digital assets — one that’s pro-innovation and fully incorporates crypto into the mainstream economy”.
The vice-president praised bitcoin investors for supporting Trump in the 2024 presidential race. He singled out billionaire donors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, co-founders of crypto platform Gemini, for winning over the Silicon Valley elites to Trump.
“Thanks in particular for what you did for me and the president, helping us get from candidacy to the White House,” he said to the bitcoin conference’s chair David Bailey.
The comments from the vice-president come just days after the Financial Times revealed that Trump’s own media group was planning to raise up to $3bn to buy cryptocurrencies. The group confirmed the move on Tuesday, on the eve of the conference in Nevada.
The Trump administration has delivered a series of victories for the crypto community, including naming tech entrepreneur and podcast host David Sacks as crypto and artificial intelligence tsar. He has also signed an executive order to create a strategic bitcoin reserve.
The price of bitcoin recently hit a new high above $111,000, but was trading slightly lower on Wednesday.
Vance said that he was among 50mn Americans who own bitcoin and predicted that the number would rise to 100mn “before too long”. The vice-president disclosed in 2023 that he owned up to $250,000 in bitcoin and said he still owned a “fair amount” of it.
Trump has already overseen a loosening of the federal government’s approach to regulation of digital assets.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped, paused or reached agreements in more than a dozen cases and investigations, according to CoinDesk, and the Department of Justice disbanded its crypto enforcement team.
Vance touted cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase — a sponsor of the Las Vegas event — which the SEC sued in 2023, saying digital currencies were unregistered securities. The SEC dropped the lawsuit after Trump took office.
Vance’s remark over the replacement of Gary Gensler — former president Joe Biden’s SEC chief — drew the loudest applause.
“We’ve got to clean up the wreckage that the last administration left us,” said Vance. “And since day one, that is exactly what we’ve been trying to do.”
Some executives on the sidelines of the conference expressed concern about potential conflicts of interest in the Trump administration but overall were supportive, given what they said was the Biden administration’s “war” on crypto.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump promoted his sons’ company World Liberty Financial, which has since launched its own stablecoin. Before his inauguration, Trump and his wife Melania also launched their own memecoins that raised hundreds of millions of dollars. The president played host to some owners of his coin last week at his resort outside Washington.
Conference chair Bailey introduced Vance and praised the president, noting that 35,000 people had arrived for this year’s event — thousands more than at a gathering last year in Nashville, where Trump said he would make the US the world’s “bitcoin superpower”.
“In 100 days, promises made, promises kept,” said Bailey.
