Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was able to make another statement on cryptocurrencies as markets were having a tough day.
Trump joined Adin Ross for a livestream interview on the platform Kick, and the two discussed a variety of topics. Ross, 23, rose to fame as a video game streamer on Twitch, but was banned from the platform for repeatedly using profanity.
Ross noted the U.S. government’s recent selloff of cryptocurrencies and asked whether he would still support cryptocurrencies if Trump wins the November election.
“They shouldn’t be doing it because they have to try to make it happen,” Trump said. “If we don’t do it, China is doing it, and they’re doing it somewhere else, and they’re doing it anyway.”
According to Arkham Intelligence data, $2 billion worth of Bitcoin was transferred from wallets listed as belonging to the U.S. government to unidentified wallets last week. Bitcoin It appears to be linked to funds previously seized from Silk Road by the US Department of Justice, with the government still holding approximately $11.1 billion worth of the cryptocurrency.
President Trump called cryptocurrencies “a very modern currency” and likened them to artificial intelligence.
“It’s like AI. ‘Do you like it or not?’ – if we don’t do it, the Chinese will or other people will, and we can’t be left behind, and cryptocurrencies are right in that realm,” Trump said. The former president has previously said: He said that America “Bitcoin Bitcoin
-2.04%
“The superpower of mining.”
Trump changed his stance on cryptocurrencies earlier this year, and last month he spoke at Bitcoin 2024 in Tennessee, one of the industry’s largest conferences. That appearance alone reportedly helped raise $21 million for his reelection campaign.
“It seems clear to the crypto community and industry that crypto is no longer a two-party issue,” Bernstein analysts wrote in a recent note. “We believe that crypto markets will trade entirely on the political front until the election results are known in early November.”
Senator Cynthia Lummis recently drafted a bill that would require the U.S. to purchase up to 200,000 bitcoins per year for five years.
According to The Block’s BTC price page, at the time of publication, the Bitcoin price was down 9%, trading at around $53,797. During that time, the volume was $118.5 billion.