As voters prepare to elect the next U.S. president next week, former president and GOP nominee Donald Trump is distinguishing himself as the most Bitcoin-friendly of the major party candidates. In June, he took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to declare, “We want all remaining Bitcoin to be made in the USA.”
This statement marks a significant pivot for Trump, who has now branded himself as crypto-friendly ahead of the November election. His newfound stance has attracted millions of dollars in cash and digital asset donations from Silicon Valley tech leaders.
Trump’s current position is a stark contrast to his previous stance on cryptocurrencies. In 2019, during his presidency, Trump made it clear that he was not a fan of Bitcoin, expressing his disapproval on Twitter and criticizing Facebook’s plans for a digital currency.
However, it seems that Trump’s journey towards embracing cryptocurrencies began with the digital art craze: NFT collectibles. After leaving the White House, his wife Melania announced plans for a Solana-based NFT collection. Trump later launched his own NFT collection, minted on Ethereum scaling network Polygon, which quickly sold out and made millions of dollars.
Despite his initial skepticism, Trump claims that the success of his NFT collections and the surprising number of buyers using cryptocurrency rather than fiat currency, helped change his perspective on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
In recent times, Trump has made his support for cryptocurrencies more evident. During an event hosted for holders of his NFTs at his Mar-a-Lago resort in May, he told the crowd he was “good with” crypto. This year, he has even advocated for U.S. Bitcoin mining, making the digital asset space a significant talking point of his campaign.
Rumors abound that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a significant donor to the Trump campaign, has been advising Trump on a crypto strategy. In July, the Republican party issued a draft party platform that explicitly mentioned crypto for the first time.
Trump’s embrace of crypto extends to his selection of Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, a pro-crypto candidate who previously disclosed Bitcoin holdings between $100,000 and $250,000 in 2021.
Trump made a significant show of his support for crypto when he spoke at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. He promised to build a “strategic Bitcoin stockpile” for the country and turn the U.S. into the “crypto capital of the planet.”
The Trump family is also teasing a decentralized finance (DeFi) project dubbed World Liberty Financial, which aims to offer borrowing and lending services for cryptocurrencies on Ethereum’s network.
Despite his crypto-friendly rhetoric, questions remain about how much of this will translate into action if Trump secures a second term. Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has warned voters about blindly supporting “pro-crypto” candidates whose values don’t align with the space.
Nonetheless, some policy experts believe that Republicans are likely to follow through on their promises—or at least that a potential Trump administration will likely be less hostile to crypto than the current Biden administration.
Trump’s journey from crypto critic to advocate has been a fascinating one, and it remains to be seen how his newfound crypto-friendly stance will impact his chances in the upcoming election.
