- 5/28/2025
Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks to the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, thank you all.
00:24Well, first of all, I want to thank, please, please, please, thank you, guys.
00:30Take your seats.
00:32And, you know, the Secret Service is a little bit nervous, because I told them these Bitcoin
00:37guys really like guns.
00:39But they really like the President and Vice President of the United States, too, so I
00:45think we're doing okay.
00:53So I first have to thank David Bailey.
00:55Grateful for everything that you've done for the Bitcoin community.
00:59Thanks in particular for what you did for me and the President helping us get from candidacy
01:05to the White House, because we've done, I think, a lot of good in the past 120 days, and
01:10I don't think we could have done it without David's support.
01:12I want to also thank the Winklevoss brothers, Tyler and Cameron.
01:19These guys are out here somewhere.
01:24Who, I've got to say, Tyler and Cameron, I think, really helped break the dam in Silicon
01:29Valley.
01:30Because if you remember, you go back to June or July of last year, it feels like forever
01:34ago.
01:35It's not even a year ago where Silicon Valley, you know, people whisper in private that they
01:40were going to support Donald Trump for President.
01:42They would talk about the fact the Democrats had gone too crazy.
01:45We had to get Gary Gensler the hell out of there.
01:47But they weren't quite willing to say, but they weren't quite willing to say, at least
01:54not publicly, that they were going to take the big step and support Donald J. Trump.
01:59And Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, I think they were some of the first big names in Silicon
02:04Valley to take that step, and a whole host of people followed them.
02:08So Cameron and Tyler, thank you for that.
02:13And, of course, I want to thank the good people at Coinbase, the organizers of this
02:20event, and everybody who made this incredible event possible.
02:24It's great to be here with Bitcoin at 108,000, at least when I checked this morning.
02:29And as Vice President of the United States, it's great to be here.
02:32Now, you guys know I get to meet a lot of exciting people in my job, but it's been quite a while
02:47since I've been to a conference with this level of energy.
02:50I mean, hell, you guys came out here at 9 a.m. after a long night, I'm sure, in Las Vegas.
02:55You can't do that without a lot of good energy.
02:58But I promise I'm not just saying that to juice my own meme coins.
03:06But I think it's wrong, actually, to call this just a conference.
03:09This isn't a conference of people.
03:11This is a movement, and I'm proud to stand with you here today.
03:14And I think this conference, this movement of people, is where the future of cryptocurrency
03:27in this great country gets decided.
03:30So let's start by making one thing abundantly clear.
03:33That future is going to be decided by the people, by you, not by unelected bureaucrats.
03:40Now, as you all probably know, you've got a star-studded lineup here today, including several of my colleagues
03:53in the Trump administration.
03:55David, Beau, Hester, I know you're all out there.
03:58It's great to be among so many friends and allies.
04:02So, I want to speak for just a few minutes about a few things.
04:06And I want to talk a little bit about what we've done in the Trump administration.
04:11I want to give you a rundown of what this administration is doing on digital assets policy.
04:16But I also want to talk about some of the principles that help guide us as we develop this policy.
04:22But before that, I want to speak about why I'm personally optimistic about crypto
04:27and what it means for the American people.
04:30Now, people ask me why I tend to be bullish on the future of innovation in this country.
04:35I've spent enough time in Silicon Valley to recognize the difference between good tech,
04:40technology that boosts our productivity, makes our lives richer,
04:45that grounds us in the real world and complements our day-to-day lives.
04:49That's the good technology, but there's also some bad technology out there.
04:53And when it comes to crypto, I think the last several years have made it clear
04:57that we're talking about genuine, ground-up innovation,
05:01one that's already improving the well-being of tens of millions of our fellow citizens.
05:07I believe it's 50 million Americans own Bitcoin,
05:10and I believe that's going to be 100 million before too long.
05:20But it's not just about Bitcoin and about the value that's been generated,
05:24the wealth that's been generated by so many millions of our fellow citizens.
05:28Through decentralized finance, crypto has transformed how Americans transact with one another.
05:34It's expanded access to banking for many who may not otherwise have had it.
05:40And every single day, I feel like I see some groundbreaking new use of blockchain tech,
05:46whether it's in supply chain management, whether it's in hospitals,
05:50or whether it's in changing how we track and store patients' private health records.
05:55But for each of these new forward-looking applications,
06:00I also feel like there's an incredibly valued conservative element to crypto technology,
06:06and that's as a hedge.
06:08Crypto is a hedge against bad policymaking from Washington,
06:13no matter what party is in control.
06:15It's a hedge against skyrocketing inflation,
06:18which has eroded the real savings rate of Americans over the last four years,
06:23and as you all know well, it's a hedge against a private sector
06:28that's increasingly willing to discriminate against consumers
06:32on the basis of their basic beliefs, including their politics.
06:45That includes, of course, debanking users for Second Amendment advocacy,
06:49or for ties to the first Trump administration.
06:53In Canada, the government did the same to kill those big truck driver protests in 2022.
06:59Less than a week later, they succeeded. The protests were over.
07:04But maybe most importantly, I see crypto as a hedge
07:08against one of the most dangerous trends in the digital era in both the public and private sector.
07:14And that's of elites who, rather than innovate themselves,
07:19prefer to simply take over and co-opt cutting-edge technologies
07:23to assert their control over other people.
07:33And I know we believe this in this room.
07:35That's not Bitcoin. It'll never be Bitcoin.
07:38And you guys are going to make sure that happens.
07:47But as you know, there's a new sheriff in town,
07:49because after four years of mistreatment and outright hostility,
07:54led by Democrat regulators, lawmakers in this country have a choice.
07:59Will we lead our nation into a future of financial sovereignty,
08:05of innovation and of prosperity?
08:07Or will we let unelected bureaucrats and four competitors write the rules for us?
08:13And I'm here today to say, loud and clear,
08:16with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House.
08:22In our administration, we understand the full potential of the digital assets industry,
08:37not just as an investment, not just as a flashy technology,
08:41but as a symbol and driver of personal liberty for all our citizens.
08:46And we are dedicated to seeing that promise fulfilled.
08:49The way that we see it, the people in this room are the digital pioneers of the American economy.
08:55And that's why our administration is doing something a little unusual in Washington.
09:00We're listening to all of you as you blaze the trail of innovation.
09:05The innovators in this room are making people's lives better.
09:10You're pushing boundaries and solving problems,
09:12injecting unprecedented transparency into how we do commerce.
09:16And the way we see it, you all deserve a similar level of transparency and clarity.
09:23And most of all, you deserve respect and support from your government,
09:27not bureaucrats trying to tear you down.
09:29Now that means a few substantive concrete steps.
09:40And of course, the first and most important of those steps is straightforward.
09:44We've got to clean up the wreckage that the last administration left us.
09:49And since day one, that is exactly what we've been trying to do.
09:53Our administration, we prioritize eliminating the rules, the red tape, and the lawfare that we saw aimed at crypto by our predecessors.
10:02We're ending the weaponization of federal regulations against this community.
10:07To put it simply, Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is dead, and it's not coming back under the Trump administration.
10:14And by the way, it's crazy that was ever even controversial, the idea of using the regulatory power of the government to crush an industry,
10:31and to crush people who espoused a view that you didn't like.
10:35It's crazy, but let my words today serve as Operation Chokepoint.
10:40Let me serve as its obituary.
10:42Now this is my vow to every single person here.
10:49You will never see this administration trying to handicap your community or diminish the impact it's had on the economy.
10:57Instead, we reject the Biden administration's legacy of death by a thousand enforcement actions.
11:06We reject regulators.
11:11Maybe the most important thing that we did for this community, we reject regulators and we fired Gary Gensler,
11:17and we're going to fire everybody like him.
11:28And we know that people like Gary Gensler, the game that they played is that under the pretense of consumer protection,
11:35they attacked every single effort to democratize our financial markets, and that is over.
11:42America.
11:47I grew up in a working-class family.
11:48I believe that America is a place where anyone should be able to make a fortune, no matter where you grew up,
11:54what degree you may or may not have.
11:57And in recent years, I'm hard-pressed to think of a better place to do so than right here in the digital assets industry.
12:04Now our second substantive step is we're trying to create a clear pro-growth legal framework for stablecoins in this country.
12:11And I know we've got some solid allies in Congress.
12:14Is Cynthia Loomis out there today or does she already go home?
12:18Well, you know, I was supposed to have dinner last night with Cynthia Loomis.
12:23We had a little event yesterday, and I looked around and I said, where the hell is Cynthia Loomis?
12:27And somebody said, well, she's got a dinner she had to go to.
12:30And I said, I'm the vice president.
12:33Unless she's having dinner with the president, Cynthia does not have an excuse to skip this event.
12:38But we love Cynthia, and I know that she's one of the great advocates for your industry in the United States Congress.
12:45Now I know, led by Cynthia and other great legislators, Congress is hard at work getting the Genius Act passed and across the president's desk as quickly as possible.
13:02And that's an important step.
13:04It's with good reason, because regulatory uncertainty in this country has pushed way too much stablecoin activity overseas over the last few years.
13:15Now somebody said to me yesterday that Bitcoin has done so much over the last few years with so many headwinds.
13:24Wouldn't it be nice to have a government that provided some tailwinds to one of the fastest growing industries in our country?
13:30And that's what we aim to do.
13:39And once the Genius Act is enacted, it's poised to vastly expand the use of stablecoins as a digital payment system for millions of our fellow Americans.
13:48It will also protect coin holders and inject further transparency into the market.
13:53And let me be emphatic on one other point.
13:56In this administration, we do not think that stablecoins threaten the integrity of the United States dollar.
14:03Quite the opposite.
14:08In fact, we view them as a force multiplier of our economic might.
14:15Dollar-pegged stablecoins, particularly once Genius is enacted,
14:20is only going to help the American economy and it's only going to help the American dollar.
14:25So, again, we're optimistic that the Senate is able to move quickly on passing a Clean Genius Act
14:31and for the House to follow up and do the same.
14:34And of course, once that happens, our great President Trump will sign it into law the minute it comes across his desk.
14:40Now, when that's happened, when the administration will then fully shift to our third priority,
14:51which is to enact a transparent and tailored regulatory framework for digital assets.
14:57One that's pro-innovation and fully incorporates crypto into the mainstream economy.
15:02And again, I've talked to so many of you over the last couple of days.
15:06And the consistent fear that I hear with all the great things that have happened over the last couple of months,
15:13the consistent fear that I hear is that there's still this perception that digital assets are not welcome in the mainstream economy.
15:21And let me promise you that our effort to change the policy is purely about changing that.
15:28We want our fellow Americans to know that crypto and digital assets, and particularly Bitcoin,
15:34are part of the mainstream economy and are here to stay.
15:46Now, we think the way to do that legislatively, because again, I hope that our party is in charge for a long time,
15:53but nothing is ever guaranteed in politics.
15:56So the best way to ensure that crypto is part of the mainstream economy is through a market structure bill
16:03that champions and doesn't restrict the extraordinary value that Bitcoin and other digital assets represent.
16:10Right now, in this Congress and with this administration,
16:14we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unleash innovation
16:19and use it to improve the lives of countless American citizens.
16:24But if we fail to create regulatory clarity now,
16:27we risk chasing this $3 trillion industry offshore in search of a friendlier jurisdiction,
16:34and President Trump is going to fight to make sure that does not happen.
16:44Think about this. By locking in smart, pro-innovation rules of the road,
16:49we can also make sure that Democrats, or anybody else, never wage another war on the crypto community.
17:01Now, I've already hit my time here, but before I head back to Washington,
17:05let me offer you just a few bits of advice and a few thoughts on where this industry is going.
17:11This is one politician's perspective, so take it for what it's worth.
17:16Maybe a little bit less than one Bitcoin right now.
17:18But let me say a few things.
17:21First of all, I remember when I ran for Senate,
17:23the first time I had ever entered politics back in 2022.
17:26And one of the frustrations, honestly, that I had with the crypto community,
17:31as a person who was one of the only people running for office who actually owned Bitcoin,
17:35Bitcoin, and I still own a fair amount of Bitcoin today.
17:44Think about this. This is during that campaign.
17:46That's 2021 and 2022.
17:48This feels like an eternity ago, but it was only four years ago,
17:52is that I recognize what so many advocates of Bitcoin recognize,
17:56which is what the Biden administration was doing.
17:59What Gary Gensler was doing was a disaster.
18:02And yet there didn't seem to be any real organization pushing back against it at the political level.
18:08And let me say that part of the reason that I'm standing here,
18:11part of the reason that Bernie Marino defeated Sherrod Brown in the Senate campaign last year,
18:17is because you guys got organized and got involved in American politics.
18:22And I'm grateful to you for that.
18:24But there's a lesson to take from that experience,
18:31which is that unless you guys get involved in politics,
18:35politics is going to ignore this industry.
18:39Now, you took a big step in 2024.
18:42And I'll tell you, every victory that we win, it's only a provisional victory.
18:47You know, one of my great mentors in Silicon Valley always told me that, you know, Bitcoin,
18:52that the crypto community was about exit and artificial intelligence was about voice.
18:58Well, I know that a lot of people in 2024 in this community chose voice.
19:03You chose to speak up and you chose to get involved.
19:06And I believe you changed the direct trajectory of our country because of it.
19:10But you've got to keep on choosing voice.
19:12You know, Bitcoin, of course, is people call it digital gold.
19:16But while Bitcoin is digital, none of you are.
19:21None of us are.
19:23What happens in the world of politics, what happens in the world of bureaucracy,
19:27it will affect even the most transformational and valuable technologies
19:32if we don't make the right decisions.
19:35So the first piece of advice, the first thing that I'd ask you,
19:39is to take the momentum of your political involvement in 2024
19:44and carry it forward to 2026 and beyond.
19:47Don't ignore politics because I guarantee you, my friends,
19:51politics is not going to ignore this community.
19:54Not now and not in the future.
19:56The second thing that I want to toss out there is that we have to start thinking
20:07of the long-term strategic implications of Bitcoin.
20:11Bitcoin is owned by about 50 million Americans.
20:14A lot of Americans have made a lot of money, have created a lot of wealth for themselves,
20:18and that's a great thing.
20:20But I actually think that where Bitcoin is going is as a strategically important asset
20:27for the United States over the next decade.
20:29It's one of the reasons why President Trump, with the help of our great AI guy David Sachs,
20:35it's one of the reasons why we started the Bitcoin Reserve.
20:39Because we want to start to put in motion the strategic importance of Bitcoin for the United States government.
20:46We know that the PRC doesn't like Bitcoin.
20:50The People's Republic of China doesn't like Bitcoin.
20:53Well, we should be asking ourselves, why is that?
20:56Why is our biggest adversary such an opponent of Bitcoin?
21:00And if the Communist Republic of China is leaning away from Bitcoin,
21:05then maybe the United States ought to be leaning into Bitcoin.
21:08And that's one of the things that we're going to be doing.
21:18But that's not a Vice President standing up here and talking at you.
21:21The way that Bitcoin is involved in the strategic future of our country,
21:26that's got to be a two-way conversation.
21:28And so when I talk about getting involved in politics,
21:31one of the things that you guys got to do is continue to give us feedback
21:36and continue to tell us the ways in which Bitcoin can play a positive role
21:41in the strategic future of this country.
21:43I know the Bitcoin Policy Institute is working on this very topic now,
21:47but all of you have got to be involved in this conversation.
21:50Because I don't think any of us want to wake up in a country ten years from now
21:54that is less wealthy and less prosperous because we made bad decisions today.
21:59We're going to make the right decisions,
22:01but that depends on you guys being part of the conversation.
22:04So be part of that conversation.
22:06And here's the third thought that I want to leave you with.
22:15One of the ways you hear this stated is that crypto is fundamentally a conservative or right-leaning technology,
22:22and artificial intelligence is fundamentally a left-leaning or a communist technology.
22:27Now I think that overstates things a little bit in both directions,
22:30but there's a fundamental element of truth to it.
22:33Now I haven't been involved in the day-to-day operations of a technology company in about four years
22:39since I entered politics for the very first time.
22:42But what I've noticed is that very smart right-wing people in tech tend to be attracted to Bitcoin and crypto,
22:50and very smart left-leaning people in tech tend to be more attracted to AI.
22:55Again, that's a gross generalization.
22:58It's an overstatement, but there's an element of truth to it.
23:01But what I'd ask you all is to remember that what happens in AI
23:05is very much going to affect in good and bad ways what happens to Bitcoin.
23:11And of course what happens to Bitcoin is very much going to affect what happens in AI.
23:16So while this is certainly a Bitcoin conference,
23:20and I know we're all proud of what you guys have accomplished over the last 10 years,
23:24my final piece of advice is to make sure you're keeping tabs on and staying involved
23:30in what's happening with artificial intelligence,
23:33because I don't want Bitcoin to be negatively affected by what happens in AI.
23:38And most importantly, I don't want America to be negatively affected by what happens in AI.
23:43And the best way to ensure that smart people are at the AI conversation
23:48is to ensure that Bitcoin is part of the artificial intelligence conversation.
23:53Our administration is committed to it.
23:55I want you guys to be committed to it as well.
23:57I just want to say in the next few years in the Trump administration, we've accomplished a lot,
24:09but we have plans to continue to make big progress for this industry
24:14and for the American people who rely on it.
24:16The whole of government, we're going to need your help, we're going to need your guidance,
24:20we're going to need your encouragement, and at times, yes, because this is politics,
24:25our politicians are going to need your pressure.
24:28So, have fun this week, but keep the pressure up,
24:32and we'll do great things together for our industry,
24:35but most importantly, for the cause of personal freedom and the United States of America.
24:40God bless you guys, and thanks for having me.
Recommended
2:30
|
Up next
1:55
1:10
1:22
2:01
0:36
4:26
0:38