This weekend,

Cryptocurrency's largest annual conference took place in Nashville, Tennessee.

It was a gathering of leaders, celebrities, tech industry, insiders, and crypto enthusiasts. But former President Trump, an independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke in favor of boosting crypto during their remarks there.

As William Bringham tells us, those speeches may be aimed at getting support this fall

from tech leaders and startups who have a growing voice on these issues.

That's right, Jeff. The incredible rise of Bitcoin and other

cryptocurrencies have created a new block of mega donors that voters and

presidential candidates are now trying to win over. Former President Trump, who initially denounced

cryptocurrency as, quote, highly volatile and based on thin air back in 2019, reversed

himself in his speech to the conference last Saturday by promising to make the US the

crypto capital of the world.

If crypto is going to define the future, I want to be mind, minted, and made in the USA. It's not going to be made anywhere else.

And if Bitcoin is going to the moon, as we say, it's going to the moon, I want America to be the nation that leads the way

and that's what's going to happen no you're gonna be very happy with me

joining me now to discuss the ramifications of all of this is David Yaffey Bellany from the New York Times.

David, thank you so much for being here.

Help set the table for us for people who have not been following us this that closely., remind us of where crypto was

after its big fall and now it's sort of resurged in the marketplace.

The last time most ordinary people tuned into the crypto industry, you know top executives were going to prison, the market was in free fall, and a lot of these kind of risky investments had been widely dismissed as worthless or scams. But a lot has changed since then. In January, the federal government approved a new investment product that's tied to the price of Bitcoin. And when that product started trading, it kind of opened up access to the

crypto market to a whole lot of people who hadn't invested in it before.

And as a result, the price of Bitcoin surged.

It reached its record high a few months ago and the

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