Today, enjoy the On the Margin newsletter on Blockworks.co. Tomorrow, get the news delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the On the Margin newsletter.
Welcome to the On the Margin Newsletter, brought to you by Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Here’s what we unpack today:
- A look inside Trump’s milestone meeting with bitcoin miners, from the perspective of Marathon Digital execs.
- There was no shortage of economic data to digest this week. Scroll for the CPI or FOMC details you might have missed.
- A Democratic congressman says the right messaging will be key to further bipartisan crypto policy efforts.
‘Monumental’ miner meeting?
T-minus five months to the US presidential election (less, in fact), and former President Donald Trump has a meeting with bitcoin mining execs under his belt.
It was a humid Tuesday (I can only imagine) in Florida. Marathon Digital CFO Salman Khan, along with Jayson Browder, the mining giant’s VP of government affairs, joined other industry peers in Mar-a-lago’s tea room.
“Around 30% of the hash rate on planet Earth was in the room,” Browder told Blockworks. “So it was quite, I think, a monumental meeting.”
Trump was at the front, Browder recalled. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., was to his left. The former president’s policy advisers and execs from nearly a dozen mining firms (i.e. Riot Platforms, CleanSpark) attended as well.
At one point, Trump looked upon an ASIC machine — made by California-based Auradine — that the Marathon leaders brought.
“He held it in his own hands, and he said it’s a beautiful American technology,” Khan noted.
He and Browder shared with Trump specific policy proposals, which they declined to detail. But Browder noted the overarching messages they left with him: “We want our industry to be treated fairly” and “we want to build an incredible business here in the US.”
An obvious question would be whether this was simply a publicity stunt by Trump. A ploy for votes in an election year, perhaps? As a convicted felon in a tight election, Trump can’t afford to turn away any potential votes. Neither can his opponent, President Joe Biden, who regularly deals with voter concerns related to his age.
It’s hard to break down the Trump sincerity question without knowing the conversation’s nuances.
Khan said Trump was well aware — “to our surprise,” he noted — of issues bothering bitcoin miners — from permit hurdles to challenges related to opening bank accounts.
Trump was said to be cognizant of the so-called “great-power competition” between the US and China and the need to stay ahead of China when it comes to AI (a segment increasingly supported by BTC miners).
Hence Trump’s comments about wanting “all the remaining bitcoin to be made in the USA,” as per his post on Truth Social.
Trump appeared to have already gotten to the “aha moment” many reach after educating themselves about bitcoin, Khan added.
Said another way, Trump didn’t sound phony to the Marathon leaders. Even if he had, I would guess the industry doesn’t so much care about which politicians are listening to them, or why — just that they’re being heard.
Trump also knew of Biden’s historically strained relationship with the crypto and BTC mining industries, which he seemed to take advantage of. There was the EIA emergency survey of bitcoin miners (eventually dropped); a proposed tax on miners’ electricity usage (also dropped); and Biden’s veto of Joint Resolution 109.
“He specifically called out each one of those issues in our meeting, and we appreciate that he understands the dynamics that have been happening,” Browder said — adding he doesn’t expect this dialogue with Trump to be “one and done.”
Still, crypto is not a partisan issue, the Marathon execs stressed. They’d be “more than excited” to meet with others, including Biden.
The crypto voter is “an increasingly important force” in the upcoming election, said Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith. That makes Trump’s meeting a “strategic step” in his embrace of blockchain tech and the country’s 50 million-plus crypto users, she added.
“We encourage President Biden to follow Congress’s lead and consider outreach and engagement with our industry,” Smith told Blockworks, also calling it a non-partisan issue.
The ball is in Biden’s court, it would appear. Or the ASIC is in his datacenter?
Bottom line, miners want to chat. At this point, it seems politically foolish not to at least lend an ear.
— Ben Strack
14%
The percentage of Bitfarms shares that Riot Platforms now owns after its latest purchase of roughly 1.4 million more.
Riot looked to take over Bitfarms outright in a deal…
Read More: On the Margin Newsletter: Inside Trump’s ‘monumental’ meeting with BTC miners