Former U.S. President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump has endorsed cryptocurrency during a special event for Trump NFT holders at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The embattled politician lamented the exodus of crypto companies from the United States due to perceived hostility towards digital assets, stating, “If we’re going to embrace it, we have to let them be here.”
Trump’s newfound embrace of crypto is a significant shift from his previous stance, and it comes at a time when his popularity among the crypto community is on the rise. In March, a poll commissioned by leading crypto venture capital firm Paradigm revealed that 48% of crypto owners plan to vote for Trump, compared to 39% who plan to vote for the incumbent, President Joe Biden.
During the event, Trump took questions from the crypto-savvy crowd and expressed his willingness to accept campaign donations in Bitcoin and other tokens. He also criticized the current administration, claiming President Biden and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler are ignorant and hostile towards crypto.
Trump’s support for digital assets has not gone unnoticed by analysts, who suggest that his potential victory in the November presidential election could be a boon for Bitcoin. The Mar-a-Lago event also coincided with the passage of a resolution in the U.S. House condemning the U.S. SEC’s policy on crypto banking, highlighting the growing divide between pro-crypto and anti-crypto factions in the political sphere.
President Joe Biden’s administration has announced its intention to veto a joint resolution that could impact cryptocurrency policy overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). On May 8, the White House issued a statement expressing strong opposition to efforts by certain House of Representatives members to pass a joint resolution. According to the statement, this legislative move could undermine the SEC’s ongoing efforts to protect cryptocurrency investors and ensure the stability of the broader financial system. House Joint Resolution 109, proposed in February, aims to reverse the SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) No. 121. This bulletin mandates that banks must include customers’ digital assets in their balance sheets and maintain sufficient capital against them.
The event also brought attention to the recent surge in prices for Solana-based meme coins featuring caricatures of Trump and Biden, with “Jeo Boden” ($BODEN) and “Doland Tremp” ($TREMP) tokens reaching market capitalizations of $473 million and $83 million, respectively. Trump, however, expressed his disapproval of the Biden-themed token’s valuation, stating, “That’s a lot of money for a coin, I don’t like that investment.”
Trump also took credit for making NFTs hot again:
Featured Image via Pixabay
