Donald Trump: 'I Support Cryptocurrency'

US President Donald Trump expressed his support for cryptocurrency in a recent interview, where he also denied profiting from any crypto ventures. The president discussed his stance on crypto with NBC News’ Meet the Press host, Bret Welker.

Trump: I Support Crypto

The president stated that cryptos have shown resilience in the market downturn and are now widely accepted. He believes the US must maintain a leading stance in crypto innovation, or else it will fall behind countries like China.

“I support cryptocurrency. I think it’s very important. If we don’t do it, China will. This is an emerging thing that’s very popular and that’s hot,” Trump shared in an interview.

He added that during market downturns, cryptocurrency has performed much stronger than other aspects of the market.

“It’s amazing how cryptocurrency has held up. Even when the market went down very badly, cryptocurrency held up unbelievably well. The other markets went down, but cryptocurrency went up. It's very interesting,” Trump stated.

The president noted the significance of cryptocurrency and its widespread adoption, which he attributes to his support for crypto. Furthermore, he criticized the Biden administration for initially showing aversion towards crypto but later softening its stance for political reasons.

“They started out talking very strongly against cryptocurrency, and then they started to get more lenient because they realized that it was getting to be a political hot potato,” Trump stated.

Donald Trump Denies Profiting from Presidency or Crypto

During the same interview, Trump denied profiting from his presidency when the host specifically asked him about his memecoin, $TRUMP.

As per Chainalysis, last month, in just two days, Trump and his allies made approx $900,000 in transaction fees through $TRUMP. This jump was the result of memecoin’s site announcing that the top 220 $TRUMP holders would get a chance to have dinner with President Trump.

Welker asked Trump about this situation in response to the perception that he was “profiting from the presidency.”

“I have not profited from it. I can tell you that no, I’m not interested in having dinner with anyone. I’m not making any money from it. I don’t want to eat dinner with the 220 richest people in the TRUMP token. I have no idea what that’s about,” Trump stated.

Welker asked Trump again, “So you haven’t profited at all from cryptocurrency? I haven’t even looked,” Trump replied, adding, “If I own stock in a company and I’m doing well, the stock market is up, I guess I’m profiting.”

After the dinner announcement, the price of the TRUMP token surged over 50%. According to the project’s website, around 80% of the TRUMP token’s supply is controlled by the Trump organization and its affiliates.

Since Trump’s first term, he and his family members have been accused multiple times of profiting from the presidency. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren even called his crypto ventures a conflict of interest, and went on to call for a congressional investigation into whether Donald Trump was involved in insider trading or market manipulation.