Six Ways the Former President Embraces Digital Currency

Despite once referring to bitcoin as a “scam” that weakens the dollar, former President Donald Trump has now embraced cryptocurrency to the point where he bills himself as the “pro-crypto” presidential candidate in his race against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Over the last couple of months, Trump has made a major pivot toward crypto as a way of bolstering his presidential campaign and winning rich and influential friends in the industry, The Wall Street Journal reported.

That pivot included launching a new crypto business with his family, making a stop at a bitcoin-themed bar in New York and promising to create a “national bitcoin stockpile” should he win a second term in the White House this November.

Here are six ways Trump now embraces digital currency.

Launch of World Liberty Financial

Last month, Trump announced the launch of World Liberty Financial, a crypto banking platform designed to encourage the public to borrow, lend and invest in crypto, CNBC reported. The platform will include an accompanying token called WLFI. One-fifth of the tokens will go to the founding team. Another 17% will be set aside for user rewards, while the remaining 63% will be made available for the public to purchase.

The token will be a Reg D token offering, according to CNBC. This means it follows the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Regulation D provision that lets companies raise capital without first registering their securities with the commission if certain conditions are met.

Support for Domestic Crypto Mining

In a speech to the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee over the summer, Trump told attendees, “You’re going to be very happy with me.”

He said, “If crypto is going to define the future, I want [it] to be mined, minted and made in the USA. … If bitcoin is going to the moon … I want America to be the nation that leads the way.”

The ex-president announced plans to establish a crypto and bitcoin presidential advisory council should he win election and pledged to make America a “bitcoin mining powerhouse.” He also said he would create a “strategic bitcoin stockpile” that would be filled with an estimated $5 billion worth of bitcoin controlled by the U.S. government.

Crypto as a Campaign Theme

Trump’s embrace of digital currency has become a central theme of his 2024 presidential campaign — and it has not gone unnoticed by industry leaders. As The Wall Street Journal noted, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz — co-founders of the venture investor Andreessen Horowitz — said on a July podcast that were supporting Trump after he personally “rewrote the Republican National Committee platform” into what they called a “flat-out, blanket endorsement of the entire space.”

SEC Changes

Trump received a standing ovation at the Nashville conference when he promised to fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, CBS News reported. Gensler is an unpopular figure among crypto enthusiasts because of his position that digital assets should be held to the same rules and standards as stock and bond trading.

Alex Gladstein, coauthor of “The Little Bitcoin Book: Why Bitcoin Matters for Your Freedom, Finances, and Future,” told CBS News, “Crypto people don’t like Gensler. I don’t think he likes all these people printing free money and then not paying taxes or not being subject to regulation.”

Using Crypto To Make Purchases

Another high-profile move Trump recently made came on a campaign stop at Pubkey, a bitcoin bar in New York. While there, he became the first former U.S. president to use crypto in a transaction when he bought about a dozen burgers and gave them away to attendees, Cointelegraph reported.

Promises To Free Ross Ulbricht

At the Nashville conference, Trump also promised to commute the life sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted on charges of drug trafficking, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking and conspiring to commit money laundering.

Silk Road was the first major marketplace to use a bitcoin-based payment system, CBS News reported, and Ulbricht’s conviction made him a “crypto-martyr” to supporters. However, the U.S. Department of Justice accused the marketplace of being used by “thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services to more than 100,000 buyers, and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these unlawful transactions.”