Vance says US should use bitcoin as an advantage in rivalry with China

Audio By Carbonatix

Enlarge

By Hannah Lang

(Reuters) -China’s wariness of bitcoin should encourage the U.S. to embrace the world’s largest cryptocurrency and build on its strategic advantage in the digital asset, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday.

As the White House pushes for an overhaul of crypto policy, Vance said bitcoin will be a strategically important asset for the United States over the next decade.

Speaking at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, Vance applauded President Donald Trump’s executive order in March that created a strategic bitcoin reserve with tokens already owned by the government.

Crypto trading and mining has been banned in China since 2021.

“The People’s Republic of China doesn’t like bitcoin. Well, we should be asking ourselves, why is that? Why is our biggest adversary such an opponent of bitcoin, and if the communist Republic of China is leaning away from bitcoin, then maybe the United States ought to be leaning into bitcoin,” he said.

Digital assets have enjoyed a resurgence under President Donald Trump, who courted cash from the crypto industry on the campaign trail by pledging to be a “crypto president.”

In his first week in office, Trump ordered the creation of a cryptocurrency working group to propose digital asset regulations. In March, he hosted a group of crypto executives at the White House.

Congress is considering legislation to create a regulatory framework for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar. The crypto industry has lobbied lawmakers to pass legislation creating new rules for digital assets and spent more than $119 million backing pro-crypto congressional candidates in last year’s elections.

(Reporting by Hannah Lang in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)