Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, June 22, 2024.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump will lead a campaign fundraiser in Nashville on the sidelines of the Bitcoin Conference, where the top ticket is $844,600 per person.
According to an invitation shared with CNBC, the July 27 event will coincide with Trump’s expected keynote address at the convention, the largest gathering of cryptocurrency fans in the country.
Top-tier tickets, which include a seat at a round table with Trump, are priced at the maximum donation amount individuals are allowed to give to Trump and the Republican party’s largest joint fundraising committee, known as the Trump 47 Committee.
A next level down includes a photo with the former president at $60,000 per person or $100,000 per couple, according to the invitation.
Trump signed on to headline the Music City Center rally shortly before he survived an assassination attempt on July 13.
A spokesman for Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about his appearances in Nashville.
In recent months, Trump has positioned himself as the cryptocurrency candidate for president, a reversal from his previous stance during his time in the White House.
In April, Trump launched his latest collection of non-fungible tokens on the solana blockchain in April and has been increasingly bullish on cryptocurrencies ever since.
Trump’s campaign team is accepting digital currency donations, and he has personally pledged to defend the rights of those who choose to hold their own coins, meaning they don’t rely on a central entity like Coinbase to hold their tokens and instead do it themselves in personal crypto wallets, which are sometimes beyond the reach of the Internal Revenue Service.
Trump also promised at the Libertarian National Convention in Washington in May to keep Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and “her fans” away from bitcoin holders.
Meanwhile, after a meeting at Mar-a-Lago with about a dozen bitcoin mining executives who promised him cash and votes, Trump declared that all future bitcoin will be minted in the US if he returns to the White House.
On Monday, the Republican presidential candidate named Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate – a move seen by many as a clear win for the cryptocurrency sector. Vance has advocated for looser regulation of cryptocurrencies and revealed in 2022 that he personally owns bitcoins.
It stands in stark contrast to the Biden White House, which has taken a consistently skeptical approach to cryptocurrency regulation. Under Biden, the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched actions on the sector.
In the absence of strict rules from Congress, the US has proven to be one of the most active actors in enforcing sanctions and legal challenges against crypto companies.
This election cycle, the crypto group has become a key conduit for cash — and votes.
A day after Trump put Vance on his ticket, businessmen Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz told Andreessen Horowitz employees that they planned to make major donations to political action committees supporting the Trump campaign.
“They’ve sued I think over 30 of our companies,” Horowitz said on an episode of “The Ben & Marc Show,” which includes the co-founders of a16z.
“They lose almost all of these lawsuits, but the problem is that when you’re a startup, you don’t have the money to fight the US government. And so they’re nucleating the industry that way.” he said.
Fairshake, a super PAC backed by leading crypto companies is now one of the highest spending PACs this election cycle. Of the total $160 million in contributions it has raised, 94% can be traced to just four companies: Ripple, Andreesen Horowitz, Coinbase, and Jump Crypto.
In early June in San Francisco, technologists, crypto executives and venture capitalists paid up to $300,000 per ticket to attend a Trump fundraiser that eventually raised more than $12 million.
