In his to take As of this Monday, Nikolaus argued that Donald Trump is heavily pro-Bitcoin. I beg to differ.
Yes, Trump is paying lip service to Bitcoiners, which is more than we can say for Kamala Harris. The fact that he spoke at the Bitcoin conference is certainly interesting, and at least indicates that he is aware of the “crypto voter” as a potential voting block. And yes, Trump did indeed show up at PubKey, which was a neat little stunt — even though he apparently wasn’t even able to make the payment himself.
But it’s obvious that all he wants is your money and your vote. The same can of course be said for most politicians, but Trump is a more extreme example. He will actually scam you for it if he needs to, whether it’s through this ridiculous NFTsor with whatever his new shitcoin project should be.
I am not at all convinced that Trump will remain an ally of Bitcoin if he is elected for a second term. Even at Bitcoin 2024, his closing remarks – “have fun with your crypto, and Bitcoin, and all the other things you play with” – made it clear that he doesn’t actually care about Bitcoin in any way. Just a few years ago, Trump said he was “not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”
Right now, Trump needs your money and your vote – but he won’t need that anymore after he’s elected. Even if you take his statements like “miners get all the electricity they need for mining” seriously, is there any reason to believe he won’t throw Bitcoin under the bus when it benefits him? .. the most obvious: in favor of the dollar?
Given Trump’s record on… broken campaign promises I wouldn’t expect anything less in his first term.