Former President Donald Trump on Saturday laid out his plans to wholeheartedly embrace cryptocurrency if elected for a second term, telling hundreds of cheering supporters of the digital tokens that he wants the U.S. to be a �bitcoin superpower� under his leadership.

In his keynote address at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, the Republican presidential nominee promised to make the United States the �crypto capital of the planet� and create a bitcoin �strategic reserve� using the currency that the government currently holds.

He also promised to remove Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler if elected and implement a crypto advisory council, teasing the crowd by asking attendees if anyone wanted to join.

�We will have regulations, but from now on the rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry,� he said.

Trump’s keynote address at the Bitcoin 2024 conference showed how radically his position on cryptocurrency has changed over time.

He was not always a fan of cryptocurrencies, writing on social media in 2019 that their �value is highly volatile and based on thin air.�

He has embraced the digital currency in recent years, and in May, his campaign began accepting donations in cryptocurrency.

Throughout the nearly 50-minute speech, Trump repeatedly sought to contrast his support of cryptocurrency to the Biden�s administration efforts to regulate the industry, telling the crowd that the federal government was �blocking your way.� Trump said he wanted cryptocurrency �mined, minted and made� in the United States.

The former president appealed to bitcoin fans by pointing to U.S. law enforcement seizures of the digital token.

�They took it away from you,� he said. �So, as I take steps to transform that vast wealth into a permanent national asset to benefit all Americans, today I repeat my promise to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht.�

Ulbricht created the underground drug-selling website Silk Road but was sentenced to life in prison after a judge held him responsible for six overdose deaths linked to his website. Some of the nearly 800 attendees who flocked to downtown Nashville to hear Trump speak wore �Free Ross Day One� hats, in a nod to Ulbricht’s prison sentence.

Tennessee�s U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn called Trump�s announcement of a bitcoin strategic reserve a �historic moment.�

Trump’s remarks came a day after independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addressed the conference and also pitched launching a strategic bitcoin reserve.

(AP)