Blockchain
Donald Trump and Bitcoin: From ‘Non-Fan’ to Crypto Candidate
Former President Donald Trump is vying to become the leader of the United States again, and this time it’s him Bitcoin-friendly.
“We want all remaining Bitcoin to be produced in the United States,” he said. She said last month on his social media platform Truth Social.
Trump has now branded himself as a crypto-friendly candidate ahead of a divisive November election, bringing millions of dollars in cash AND digital resource donations from Silicon Valley technology leaders.
But it wasn’t always this way. While the Republican presidential candidate now calls for domestic Bitcoin production, he was once a vocal critic of cryptocurrency. So how did we get here?
Trump’s first major comment on cryptocurrency dates back to 2019, when, as president, he clarified he didn’t like Bitcoin.
“I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money and whose value is highly volatile and based on nothing,” he said. She said on Twitter at the time, before criticizing Facebook’s plans for a digital currency.
“We have only one real currency in the US, and it is stronger than ever, more reliable and safe,” he added. “It is by far the most dominant currency in the entire world, and it will always remain that way. It is called the United States dollar!”
trump reiterated his beliefs during a Bitcoin bull run in 2021. “Bitcoin just seems like a scam,” he said on Fox Businessrepeating that he wanted the dollar to be the world’s most important currency.
Entering the NFT World
It took a long time for him to explicitly state that he liked the leading cryptocurrency, and the journey began with an unlikely crypto craze: NFT collectibles.
By the end of 2021, after Trump left the White House, his wife Melania announced his plans for a Solana-NFT collection based on. Solana Labs clarified which had nothing to do with the launch of the collection on the blockchain, and Trump continued to slam the cryptocurrency as “dangerous” despite his wife’s initiative.
The following year, however, the former commander-in-chief launched his own NFT collection. Minted on Ethereal scalability network PolygonThe digital trading card collection was initially ridiculed—but it still sold out quickly and grossed millions of dollars.
Trump after She said who launched the collection just because he thought they were “a little cute.” Since then he has launched more collections on Polygon, and even minted some of the latest series on Bitcoin through Order them protocol.
A digital wallet linked to the former president by blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence shows he has raked in millions in royalties from NFTs and also holds some of the larger unofficial Trump meme coins, which were likely sent to the wallet without Trump’s knowledge or consent.
Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrencies
But it wasn’t until this year that Trump really upped the pro-crypto game. “I make money from it, I have fun with it,” Trump She said in a March interview with CNBC Box of squeaks“I call them crazy new currencies.”
Then, while hosting holders of his NFTs at his Mar-a-Lago resort in May, said the crowd said he was “good” at cryptocurrencies and criticized Biden and the Democrats for being “against” them. Many saw the event as a turning point in cryptographic policy discussions.
Now, along with his recent statement of support for Bitcoin mining in the United States, the digital asset sector has become a major talking point in his campaign as he seeks to win over the cryptocurrency community.
voices fallen in May that the world’s richest man and Trump’s biggest campaign donor, Elon Musk, advised the presidential candidate on a crypto strategy. (Musk has denied the reports.) Last week, the Republican Party released a draft party platform that crypto explicitly mentioned—an absolute novelty for the sector.
After survive an assassination last week’s attempt, the business mogul and former reality TV star won Musk’s public endorsement, as well as the support of several other prominent names in the digital asset industry. And major cryptocurrency figures like Winklevoss Gemini twins and Kraken founder Jesse Powell have donated large sums to Trump.
In the meantime, a fourth NFT collection is apparently in the works, as Trump believes “people want him to do another one.” His latest set, the biggest drop ever, has yet to sell out after seven months release.
Earlier this week, Trump picked Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, with the potential vice president seen as a pro-crypto candidate who in 2021 had already declared to own Bitcoin for an amount between $100,000 and $250,000.
The most tangible sign of Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrencies will apparently come next week, when… programmed to speak at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.
With the November election just months away, Trump and his allies are likely to continue to talk a lot about cryptocurrency policy, especially if it continues to be a potentially divisive issue for voters.
If the GOP frontrunner gets a second chance to govern the United States, however, how much of his new crypto-friendly rhetoric will be put into practice? BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes doubts his sinceritywhile the creator of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin has warned voters extensively on blindly supporting “pro-crypto” candidates whose values are not in line with space, although Buterin did not name names.
However, some political experts told Decrypt that they believe Republicans keep promises—or at least that a potential Trump administration will likely be less hostile to cryptocurrencies than Biden’s current approach.
By Ryan-Ozawa AND Andrea Hayward