President Trump, in a press release published on his website this afternoon, announced that his campaign to take back the White House will begin accepting donations using Bitcoin.
This announcement by his campaign is sure to stoke the fires between the incumbent President Joseph Biden, who alongside fellow Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), has spent the majority of his term in Washington waging an all-out regulatory attack against the digital asset space, and Bitcoin in particular.
“As our President, Donald J. Trump has reduced regulations and championed innovation in financial technology, while Democrats, like Biden and his official surrogate Elizabeth Warren, continue to believe only government has the answers to how our nation leads the world,” the announcement stated. “The effort to reduce the control of government on an American’s financial decision-making is part of a seismic shift toward freedom. Today’s announcement reflects President Trump’s commitment to an agenda that values freedom over socialistic government control.”
BREAKING: 🇺🇸 Donald Trump now officially accepts #Bitcoin for campaign donations. pic.twitter.com/ySkwNQT1D2
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) May 21, 2024
As Bitcoin Magazine made note in its Orange Party Issue, Trump’s appointment of former Coinbase VP Brian Brook as the Comptroller of the Currency was “the single most important Bitcoin-forward move in the history of the United States,” as it allowed banks and financial firms to hold cryptocurrencies. This ruling went into effect midway through the last year of Trump’s first term, and bitcoin’s price multiplied around twenty times in just the next calendar year.
The Trump administration has been no stranger to Bitcoin over the years, with the appointment of long-time Bitcoin and crypto proponent Mick Mulvaney as his White House Chief of Staff, as well as PayPal’s Peter Thiel making an appearance on his transition team.
Trump also made history by being the first US President to embrace non-fungible tokens with his incredibly successful Trump Cards that sold out at the end of 2022. In yet another historic first not to be forgotten, Melania Trump was the first First Lady to tweet about Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s contribution to the financial system at the start of 2022, referencing the January 3 anniversary of the Genesis Block that kick started the Bitcoin blockchain.
In January at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Trump promised that when he is elected, he will not allow the Federal Reserve to create a central bank digital currency. “Tonight, I am also making another promise to protect Americans from government tyranny,” Trump said. “As your president, I will never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency.”
As for the campaign donations themselves, the announcement specified that donors would be able to send Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to the Trump 2024 campaign via Coinbase, the only publicly-listed Bitcoin exchange in the United States.
“Biden surrogate Elizabeth Warren said in an attack on cryptocurrency that she was building an “anti-crypto army” to restrict Americans’ right to make their own financial choices,” the announcement continued. “MAGA supporters, now with a new cryptocurrency option, will build a crypto army moving the campaign to victory on November 5th!”