Trump calls crypto 'a very dangerous thing'

Former US President Donald Trump recently reiterated that he’s not a fan of cryptocurrencies, despite saying positive things about former first lady Melania Trump’s recently-announced NFT platform.

“She’s going to do great,” Trump said of the former first lady’s NFT project while speaking with Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo on December 20 during her Mornings With Maria television program. 

However, Trump went on to decry cryptocurrencies as “a very dangerous thing,” reinforcing comments he made in June on the news network.

“Well, I never loved it, because I like to have the dollar, I think the currency should be the dollar, so I was never a big fan. But it’s building up bigger and bigger, and nobody's doing anything about it,” Trump told Bartiromo.

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Trump continued: “Look, I want a currency called the dollar, I don’t want to have all these others — and that can be an explosion someday like the likes of which we’ve never seen. It’ll make the big tech explosion look like baby stuff. I think it’s a very dangerous thing.”

Based on the actions of Republicans in the House and Senate over the past year -- including specific moves taken during the fight over a bipartisan infrastructure bill -- Trump would appear to be at odds with his political party on the subject.

From Sen. Ted Cruz's push for Texas to welcome more bitcoin miners to crypto-holding senators like Cynthia Lummis, the GOP has largely taken the pro-crypto position, as a recent House Financial Services Committee hearing also demonstrated. 

This fall, the leading Republican on the HSFC, Patrick McHenry, sought to codify in law a safe harbor provision for token-focused startups, drawing on a proposal from SEC commissioner Hester Peirce, herself an advocate for a more open regulatory approach to crypto. 

About Author

Kristin Majcher is a senior correspondent at The Block, based in Colombia. She covers the Latin America market. Before joining, she worked as a freelancer with bylines in Fortune, Condé Nast Traveler and MIT Technology Review among other publications.