Donald Trump and Bitcoin: From 'Not a Fan' to Crypto President—With His Personal Meme Coin – Decrypt

Bitcoin-friendly Donald Trump gained the election in November, and was inaugurated in January because the forty seventh President of america of America. However forward of being formally sworn in, the commander in chief dropped a meme coin.

Sure, you learn that proper. Working on the Solana community, the TRUMP token at one level had a market cap of $14 billion. It’s since plunged to $2.9 billion however the transfer signaled the brand new President’s rising enthusiasm for the digital asset area after campaigning to assist Bitcoiners and the fast-moving sphere as a complete.

Trump branded himself as a crypto-friendly candidate forward of November’s divisive election, bringing in tens of millions of {dollars} in money and digital asset donations from Silicon Valley tech leaders. After which he gained.

However it wasn’t at all times like this: President Trump was as soon as a staunch crypto critic. So how did we get right here?

Trump’s most defining early touch upon cryptocurrency dates again to 2019, when as president he made it clear he didn’t like Bitcoin. 

“I’m not a fan of Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies, which aren’t cash, and whose worth is extremely risky and primarily based on skinny air,” he mentioned on Twitter on the time, earlier than slamming Fb’s plans for a digital foreign money. 

“We’ve got just one actual foreign money within the USA, and it’s stronger than ever, each reliable and dependable,” he added. “It’s by far probably the most dominant foreign money anyplace on the planet, and it’ll at all times keep that means. It’s referred to as america greenback!”

Trump reiterated his beliefs throughout a Bitcoin bull run in 2021. “Bitcoin simply looks as if a rip-off,” he mentioned on Fox Enterprise, repeating that he needed the greenback to be the world’s prime foreign money.

Coming into the NFT world

It took a very long time for him to explicitly say he preferred the highest cryptocurrency, and the journey began with an unlikely crypto craze: NFT collectibles. 

By the top of 2021, after Trump had left the White Home, his spouse Melania introduced her plans for a Solana-based NFT assortment. Solana Labs clarified that it had nothing to do with the gathering launching on the blockchain, and Trump continued to slam crypto as “harmful” regardless of his spouse’s enterprise. 

The following yr, nevertheless, the commander-in-chief launched his personal NFT assortment. Minted on Ethereum scaling community Polygon, the digital buying and selling card assortment was at first ridiculed—but it surely nonetheless offered out rapidly and made tens of millions of {dollars}. 

Trump later mentioned that he solely launched the gathering as a result of he thought they had been “type of cute.” He has since launched extra collections on Polygon, and even minted a few of the third set on Bitcoin through the Ordinals protocol. A fourth assortment launched in August 2024 with the biggest variety of NFTs up to now.

Trump has even claimed that the success of his NFT collections, and the stunning variety of consumers who used cryptocurrency fairly than fiat foreign money, helped change his perspective on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

A digital pockets tied to the President by blockchain analytics agency Arkham Intelligence reveals that he has raked in tens of millions in royalties from the NFTs—and likewise holds a few of the greatest unofficial Trump meme cash, which possible had been despatched to the pockets with out Trump’s information or consent.

Trump’s crypto embrace

However it was simply final yr when Trump actually upped the pro-crypto discuss. “I become profitable with it, I’ve enjoyable with it too,” Trump mentioned in a March interview with CNBC’s Squawk Field. “Loopy new currencies, that’s what I name them.”

Then, whereas internet hosting holders of his NFTs at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Could, he advised the group he was “good with” crypto—and slammed Biden and the Democrats for being “towards it.” Many noticed the occasion as a turning level in crypto coverage conversations.

Rumors unfold in Could that the world’s richest man and largest donor to the Trump marketing campaign, Elon Musk, has been advising the presidential hopeful on a crypto technique. (Musk denied the studies.) In July, the Republican occasion issued a draft occasion platform that explicitly talked about crypto—a primary for the business.

After surviving an assassination try in July, the enterprise mogul and former actuality TV star earned Musk’s public endorsement, in addition to help from many different outstanding names within the digital asset area. And main crypto figures just like the Winklevoss twins of Gemini and Kraken founder Jesse Powell donated sizable sums to Trump.

Trump then chosen Senator J.D. Vance as his choose for working mate, with the Vice President seen on the time as a pro-crypto candidate who beforehand disclosed Bitcoin holdings of between $100,000 and $250,000 again in 2021.

However probably the most tangible signal of Trump’s embrace of crypto got here when he spoke on the 2024 Bitcoin Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. There, he promised the group that he would construct a “strategic Bitcoin stockpile” for the nation and that his plan was to show the U.S. into the “crypto capital of the planet.”

The Trump household then teased a decentralized finance (DeFi) challenge dubbed World Liberty Monetary, with Trump himself posting a number of social media teasers in the course of the preliminary rollout.

The President’s son Donald Jr. mentioned that the crypto platform can be egalitarian. “For too lengthy, the typical American has been squeezed by the massive banks and monetary elites. It is time we take a stand—collectively,” he mentioned on Twitter (aka X).

Then, a day after the second try on his life, Trump launched the challenge throughout a dwell interview with Rug Radio (Decrypt’s sister firm). World Liberty Monetary goals to supply borrowing and lending providers for cryptocurrencies on Ethereum’s community.

As crypto token launches go, the challenge was a little bit of a flop proper out of the gate, solely managing to promote 4% of its allotted tokens throughout its launch. However gross sales ticked up considerably forward of Trump’s inauguration, with the remainder of the allotment promoting out on January 20—the day he returned to the White Home.

Decrypt then reported that the World Liberty Monetary challenge had launched its personal stablecoin. On-chain information reveals the token is on the market on each Ethereum and Binance’s BNB Chain.

The Republican additionally has extra crypto folks on his staff. Bitcoin bull Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his marketing campaign to endorse Trump, after which joined Trump’s transition staff. Now he is the Secretary of Well being and Human Companies. Orange-pilled Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick can be a part of Trump’s political squad, now serving as Secretary of Commerce.

In the meantime, famous Dogecoin fan Elon Musk is main the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), a program that’s slashing budgets and slicing jobs throughout the federal government, although he is mentioned that he’ll step apart quickly.

Crypto ambitions develop

Trump in September turned the primary present or former President of the U.S.—that we all know of—to have used Bitcoin to purchase one thing: On the well-liked crypto bar in New York Metropolis, PubKey, the ex-President purchased a burger utilizing the cryptocurrency.

“It’s the start of a brand new period,” he mentioned, referring to the digital asset business. And it wasn’t simply discuss: On January 17, he launched a meme coin working on Solana, and the token is now one of the vital precious meme cash in existence.

The TRUMP token launch has been extensively criticized by politicians and analysts, and is seen by some as a possible avenue for corruption. However whereas the worth is down sharply from the height, it continues to see buying and selling demand, together with in April when Trump revealed plans to host an unique dinner for prime TRUMP holders.

President Trump doesn’t need to cease there, although.

The Republican, in his first three months in workplace, has established a strategic Bitcoin reserve and grow to be the primary president to signal a crypto-related invoice into legislation—ending the IRS’s so-called DeFi dealer rule, which may have imperiled the event of crypto apps in America.

Trump’s SEC has additionally scrapped quite a few lawsuits and towards crypto corporations from the earlier administration, and his household is continuous to—albeit controversially—push forward with its personal crypto ventures: Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are launching American Bitcoin, a collaboration with Bitcoin mining agency Hut8 that plans to grow to be the “world’s largest and best Bitcoin miner.”

Trump’s media firm Trump Media and Know-how Group in March additionally signed an settlement to staff with Crypto.com to supply ETFs, with Trump Media itself planning to take a position its personal cash into the merchandise.

Trump critics have argued that the president’s digital asset ventures represent a battle of curiosity; Silicon Valley bigwigs say he’s pro-innovation. One factor is for positive, although: President Trump seems to be going all-in on crypto, shrugging off his previous perspective on the business.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor’s observe: This story was initially revealed on July 19, 2024 and final up to date with new data on April 27, 2025.