Donald Trump has been on quite a journey since the days when he said bitcoin “seems like a scam”. This week, the Trump family media company said it was raising $2.5bn from investors to buy up the cryptocurrency. His sons Eric and Donald Jr promised thousands of orange-clad bitcoin investors in Las Vegas a bonanza, in part because, as his vice-president JD Vance told the same conference, “crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House”. Bitcoin has hit a recent record high on optimism that US lawmakers will soon agree their first crypto regulations — for stablecoins, or digital tokens pegged to the dollar or another currency.
Yet the Trump family’s enthusiasm for crypto ventures combined with his administration’s pro-crypto stance creates a glaring conflict of interest. The drive to legitimise often volatile crypto assets also threatens to inject new risks into the financial system.
Few presidents and their families have associated themselves so closely, in office, with one industry. The US leader has promoted his $TRUMP memecoin, and hosted a gala dinner for its biggest holders. World Liberty Financial, which lists Trump as its “chief crypto advocate”, has launched a dollar-pegged stablecoin, USD1, which now has a $2.15bn market value.