Key takeaways:
- The former president of the US has said that he will accept crypto payments for his 2024 presidential campaign. Trump is now being prosecuted in four different states.
- With less than six months until Election Day, Trump is the likely Republican Party nominee for US President in 2024.
The former president of the United States, Donald Trump, has said that he will accept crypto payments for his 2024 presidential campaign. Trump is now being prosecuted in four different states.
The Trump 2024 campaign announced in a notification dated May 21 that it had set up a fundraising page where qualified donors may make crypto donations utilizing the Coinbase Commerce platform. The website included logos for 0x, Bitcoin, Ether, USD Coin, Shiba Inu, XRP, and Solana.
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s attacks on cryptocurrencies were included in the statement, which implied—without providing any supporting data—that she was serving as US President Joe Biden’s “official surrogate” in Congress.
Trump promised to ensure guests could donate to his crypto campaign during a May 8 dinner for supporters who bought a nonfungible token with a photo from his jail surrender in Georgia.
With less than six months until Election Day, Trump is the likely Republican Party nominee for US President in 2024. The presumed Democratic Party nominee, Joe Biden, will probably oppose him.
President Biden challenged Trump on May 15, and in response, he agreed to appear on CNN and ABC for broadcast debates on June 27 and September 10, respectively.
The debates may be the first in-person meeting between the two candidates since 2020, when Trump lost to Biden in the election. However, the details are still being worked out.
Trump’s campaign website’s “issues” page did not expressly address digital assets or blockchain, even though it collected crypto donations. Although he hasn’t publicly said anything about cryptocurrencies, President Biden signed an executive order in 2022, creating a regulatory framework for digital assets.
The report of Trump’s crypto donation came as the jury in his criminal trial in New York was getting ready to deliberate, which is scheduled for next week.
The former president is expected to appear in person in a Manhattan courtroom due to allegations that he falsified financial records to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000. In addition, he is accused of mishandling confidential information in Florida and attempting to rig the 2020 election results in Georgia and the District of Columbia.
After leaving office in 2021, Trump stated that he thought the US dollar should be the “currency of the world” and that Bitcoin “just seems like a scam.”
However, prior to Trump emerging as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, competitors Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy made remarks regarding central bank digital currency (CBDCs), which occasionally brought digital asset policies to the forefront.
At a campaign rally in January 2024, Trump declared that he would never permit the establishment of a CBDC in the US.
The crypto contributions coincide with reports that some of Trump’s criminal and civil lawsuits have been paid for by political action committees (PACs) that back him.
A judge found Trump and his companies guilty of fraud in February and ordered the disgorgement of $355 million.
Author E. Jean Carroll filed a defamation action, and a judge in New York ordered the former president to pay more than $83 million in January. A jury also awarded $5 million in damages in May 2023 after finding Trump accountable for sexual assault and defamation against Carroll.
