By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - US President Donald Trump hosted the inaugural White House crypto summit on Friday, less than one day after he ordered the establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
"I promised to make America the Bitcoin superpower of the world and the crypto capital of the planet. And we're taking historic action to deliver on that promise," Trump said as he brought together executives from several crypto firms.
Trump said his decision to create the reserve will create "a virtual Fort Knox for digital gold to be housed within the United States Treasury." It will be comprised of 200,000 Bitcoins already seized by the federal government in law enforcement actions, and Trump said the Treasury and Commerce departments will "explore new pathways to accumulate additional Bitcoin holdings for the reserve."
Non-Bitcoin digital assets will be held in a different "digital asset stockpile where they will be managed properly," said Trump.
He slammed past sales of Bitcoin carried out by the federal government, saying he would not be following suit.
"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. But they did sell them, mostly during the Biden administration, not a good, not a good thing to have done," he said.
"From this day on, America will follow the rule that every Bitcoin knows very well, never sell your Bitcoin. That's a little phrase that they have. I don't know if that's right or not. Who the hell knows?" he added.