On a call-in interview with Fox Business in 2021, the recently ousted US president Donald Trump was asked his opinion on bitcoin. The cryptocurrency was on a record-breaking run and on track to be the best-performing major asset of the year, with gains 10 times greater than that of gold.
“It just seems like a scam,” Trump said. “I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar… The currency of this world should be the dollar and I don’t think we should have all of the bitcoins of the world out there.”
Less than three years later, Trump is now pitching himself as the “crypto president”, pledging to protect the 50 million people in the US who own cryptocurrency from “Elizabeth Warren and her goons”, while also ensuring that “all the remaining bitcoin [is] MADE IN THE USA!!!”
This sudden shift in stance appears to fit with both his nationalistic rhetoric and his implacable opposition to Democratic policies – but the move may also be opportunistic. In May, a widely shared survey revealed that just over a fifth of voters in crucial…
