US presidential candidate pledges to defend Bitcoin

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he would defend the first cryptocurrency if elected President of the United States in 2024. The Block.

The Republican politician launched his campaign with an event on Twitter Spaces featuring Elon Musk. During a discussion with 300,000 listeners, he said:

‘I think people should be free to engage with Bitcoin. As president, I will defend such things.’

He noted that any regulation would ultimately have to be considered by Congress, but he spoke out against any ban.

In May DeSantis spoke in support of decentralized assets, promising to block in Florida the use of any CBDC. In criticizing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has also signaled presidential ambitions.

‘I simply have no desire to control everything people can do in this space, and I think the current regime is clearly demonising Bitcoin, and if this continues for another four years, they will likely kill it,’ DeSantis said.

In March, the Florida governor signed a law to introduce in middle schools programs to raise financial literacy, including in relation to cryptocurrencies.

During a press conference, he said that lawmakers did not back his initiative to allocate funding for ‘experiments with blockchain’. He also expressed skepticism about CBDC because of the possibility that the central government could tightly control citizens’ financial freedoms through the asset.

As Chamath Palihapitiya, founder of the venture-capital firm Social Capital, has said, the U.S. crypto industry has already already ‘died’ due to regulatory policy.