Donald Trump said he would end the “persecution” of the crypto industry, sack the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and free a convict the community views as a martyr.

In a direct pitch to cryptocurrency devotees at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday, the Republican candidate promised to end the Biden administration’s “crusade” against bitcoin.

“I pledge to the bitcoin community, that the day I take the oath of office, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ anti-crypto crusade will be over,” said Trump.

“On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler,” Trump said to a massive roar from the roughly 5,000 people seated in the audience.

Crypto’s embrace of Trump comes against the backdrop of a difficult few years for the industry, which has faced an aggressive clampdown from the SEC. Crypto is “a field that has been rife with fraud and manipulation”, Gensler said earlier this year.

The SEC has pursued numerous crypto companies and executives, helping put FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao behind bars, and launched lawsuits against exchanges Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini, payments provider Ripple Labs and blockchain software company Consensys.

Trump on Saturday promised to end the “repression”, saying rules should be “written by people who love your industry, not by people who hate your industry”.

He also said he would instruct the Department of Treasury to abandon the creation of a central bank digital currency, and appoint a bitcoin and crypto advisory council.

The pitch was a dramatic reversal for Trump, who has previously claimed the value of cryptocurrencies was “based on thin air”, calling it “potentially a disaster waiting to happen.” He has described bitcoin as “a scam”.

But now both presidential candidates are courting the vote of ‘crypto bros’. Members of Kamala Harris’ campaign have met with people close to crypto companies in recent days in a bid to “reset” a relationship which soured during the Biden administration.

Trump, meanwhile, is the first major party candidate to accept donations in cryptocurrencies — and claimed on Saturday his campaign had raised $25mn in crypto donations. His running mate, JD Vance, at one point owned up to $250,000 in bitcoin in a Coinbase account, according to his 2022 financial disclosure form.

The support for Trump was obvious all over the conference centre. Trumpers in branded gear sporting “Make Money Great Again” slogans mixed with attendees in Satoshi T-shirts, orange cowboy hats, dresses and high heels. Trump spoke on “Nakamoto” stage,” in reference to Satoshi, the pseudonymous developer of bitcoin.

Some attendees wore T-shirts calling to free Ross Ulbricht, who was given a life sentence in 2015 for creating the online black market Silk Road, by voting for Trump. The GOP presidential nominee’s promise to commute his sentence caused the second biggest cheer of the speech, after the call to fire Gensler.

“They slander you as criminals but that happened to me, too, because I said the election was rigged,” said Trump.

Earlier at the conference, Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, who has given pro-Trump Pacs over $1.4mn this election cycle and will host a fundraiser for the ex-president next month, announced an initial $2bn lending program financing bitcoin. He added that his firm owns a “shitload of bitcoin”.

Some attendees said that Trump’s presence alone could flip their vote, hoping that they will have for the first time an ally in the White House.

Investor and attendee Nick Smith said he did not vote for Trump in 2020 but would choose him today over Harris.

“I think they like his F-U attitude towards the establishment,” said Smith of Trump fans.

The price of bitcoin has jumped 10 per cent to over $68,000 since Trump survived an assassination attempt on July 13. “I’m plugging for bitcoin to go over 70 — and even higher when the president speaks,” said David McIntosh, President of the Club for Growth, who is a Trump ally.

“Trump is a businessman and an entrepreneur — and he sees the opportunity that bitcoin affords the US and himself,” conference chief of staff Brandon Green said. “Over the past four years, you’ve seen a very hostile [Biden-Harris] administration towards the industry.”

“Bitcoin is on the ballot,” Green later said on stage.

At the conference on Friday, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr promised to direct the US Treasury to buy 4mn bitcoins, make transactions between the digital currency and the dollar “unreportable” and “nontaxable.”

Among the guest speakers was Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a tremendous amount of information about US government surveillance. He told the crowd: “Cast a vote, but don’t join a cult.”

North Carolina Democratic lawmaker Wiley Nickel called for Harris to lead a party “reset” on crypto. Nickel, Ro Khanna and other Democrats in Congress sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee on Saturday calling for the next administration to “select a pro-innovation SEC chair”. He got a smattering of applause — but then was shouted down when he read on stage past Trump tweets critical of cryptocurrencies.

“I want to say this as politely and respectfully as I can. Donald Trump was president for four years. He did nothing on this issue,” said Nickel. “Right now, I can tell you: He is totally full of shit.”

Additional reporting by Nikou Asgari

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — In her first fundraiser since becoming her party’s candidate for president, Vice President Harris on Saturday called herself the underdog in the race but predicted that she and Democrats would win in November.

“We got a fight ahead of us and we are the underdogs in this race,” she said Saturday afternoon at the Colonial Theatre. “But this is a people-powered campaign and we have momentum.”

Harris told supporters that the race was a choice between two visions for the country — one looking toward the future and one that wants to undo the country’s progress.

“Let us make no mistake. This campaign is not just about us vs. Donald Trump,” she said. “As we fight to move our nation forward, Donald Trump intends to take our country backward.”

The vice president also returned to a theme of freedom — freedom to vote, freedom from gun violence and reproductive freedom. She accused Trump of being a threat to women’s fundamental right to make decisions about their bodies and suggested that he would not stop there.

“Do we want to live in a country of freedom, compassion and rule of law or a country of chaos, fear and hate?” Harris said.

She also commented on Trump and his VP pick Sen. JD Vance’s latest attacks against her since her ascent as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

“You may have noticed, Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record and some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it’s just plain weird,” she said, drawing laughter from the crowd.

According to the Harris campaign, the vice president was expected to raise more than $1.4 million at her first fundraiser. Roughly 800 people attended the event.

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At least eleven civilians were killed on Saturday after a rocket struck northern Israel, in the deadliest incident since hostilities began between the country and Lebanon-based Hizbollah last October.  

The rocket struck a football pitch in the Druze town of Majdal Shams, in the occupied Golan Heights, where children and teenagers were congregating, according to Israeli health authorities. Twenty people were injured.

Daniel Hagari, Israel’s chief military spokesperson, said it was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since Hamas’s October 7 assault that triggered the war in Gaza.

“We witnessed great destruction when we arrived at the soccer field . . . the scene was gruesome,” said an Israeli first responder.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) blamed Iran-backed Hizbollah. “According to all our intelligence and assessments, this is a Hizbollah attack,” said an Israeli military official.

In an unusual move, Hizbollah denied responsibility for the strike. But the group controls southern Lebanon and has been trading cross-border fire with Israel for nearly 10 months.

Hizbollah “had absolutely nothing to do with the incident and categorically denies all false allegations in this regard,” the group said in a statement.

Hizbollah began to fire on northern Israel the day after Hamas militants attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7 last year, saying it was acting in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group.

The rocket that hit Majdal Shams was one of dozens of projectiles and drones fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on Saturday afternoon, according to Israeli officials. Hizbollah said it had targeted multiple Israeli military installations in north-eastern Israel and the Golan Heights in retaliation for Israeli air strikes on several Lebanese border villages earlier in the day.

One strike on the village of Kfar Kila, which Israel said was aimed at a “terrorist cell” and weapons storage facility, reportedly killed three Hizbollah members.

According to Israeli data, before Saturday’s attack 29 Israelis, including 11 civilians, had been killed in northern Israel since the start of the Gaza war.

More than 350 Hizbollah fighters, including some mid-to-high ranking officers and commanders, and more than 100 Lebanese civilians have been killed in the hostilities so far, according to an FT estimate. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to hold consultations with his security chiefs later on Saturday, according to his office. The premier, who is still in the US after last week addressing the US Congress and meeting President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and ex-President Donald Trump, said he was seeking to return to Israel earlier than planned.

Despite months of rising hostilities, the tensions between Israel and Hizbollah have not yet escalated into an all-out war. Yet the conflict on the Israel-Lebanon frontier has displaced some 200,000 people.

The Lebanese militant group has vowed to continue its attacks until the war in Gaza ends. For their part, Israeli officials have said that they are committed to returning the residents of northern Israel back to their homes, either through US-backed diplomacy or via “other means,” as Netanyahu has put it.

Earlier on Saturday, around 30 people were killed in IDF air strikes which targeted a school in central Gaza housing displaced people, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave.

The Israeli military said Hamas militants were using the Khadija school as a “hiding place to direct and plan . . . attacks” and to store weapons.

The attack came after the IDF announced it was further “adjusting” an Israeli-designated humanitarian “safe zone” in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, ahead of a planned offensive in the area. Last week Israel renewed operations in the city, shrinking the “safe zone” and calling on Gazans to evacuate to the nearby Al-Mawasi coastal strip.

“Remaining in this area has become dangerous,” the IDF said in a statement on Saturday.

Gaza ceasefire talks were set to resume on Sunday at a summit in Rome, with the participation of US CIA chief Bill Burns, the head of Israel’s Mossad David Barnea and Egyptian and Qatari officials.

Negotiations have stalled for several months due to fundamental gaps between Israel and Hamas. Israel on Saturday provided the US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators with an official response to the latest draft proposal, according to an Israeli official.