Former US President Donald Trump and leading Republican candidate in the November election said he was “having fun” with crypto but did not trade it.
“Well, it’s taken [on] his own life,” Trump said in a interview on CNBC this morning when asked what he thinks about crypto. “You know, I sometimes do little things for fun and, you know, I make money from it and I have fun too.”
Trump went on to say that he sometimes allows people to pay him in bitcoin, adding that it is a “additional form of currency.”
The presidential candidate appears to be softening his stance on bitcoin and the broader crypto market, having previously said “it feels like a scam” in 2021. His latest remarks also echoed comments at an event at a town hall on Fox News in February, where Trump said that while some regulation was likely necessary, many people were adopting bitcoin and he could “live with it one way or another.”
Trump has consistently emphasized the importance of the US dollar, but cryptocurrencies and the market associated with them appear to be increasingly attracting his attention. “I used to say: I want a single currency. I want the dollar. I don’t want people to abandon the dollar and all that. I feel that. But I can tell you, it took a lifetime,” Trump said.
“I made something that made people smile, but it was wild,” he added, referring to his sneaker collection. “We made 1,000 sneakers, a limited edition sneaker, and you could browse our crazy new currencies because that’s what I call them.”
“The last pair sold for $450,000. So it took off — and I noticed a lot of them were being paid with the new currency,” Trump said. “It’s a new cryptocurrency, and I couldn’t believe the amount.”
“It’s been used a lot and I’m not sure I want to take it down at this point,” he added.
Donald Trump’s changing views on crypto
As president in 2019, Trump also lambasted bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. “I’m not a fan of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money and whose value is very volatile and based on nothing,” Trump said.
However, Trump has since continued to promote his own non-fungible tokens, including a trading card collection in December 2022 and a “Mugshot edition” of the collection in December last year. Blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence said a crypto wallet it said belonged to Trump sold 1,075 ETH, worth about $2.4 million at the time , during the same month.
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