Republican presidential contender Donald Trump bought burgers in a New York City bar using Bitcoin, making history as the first candidate to use crypto publicly.
“One of the most historic transactions in #bitcoin history was just made,” said the crypto-themed PubKey Bar in New York in a post on X on Sept. 18. The transaction also made Trump the first president, former or sitting, to use Bitcoin in public.
The Bitcoin purchase follows Trump’s broad embrace of crypto after vowing to become the ”crypto president” if he retakes the White House in November’s elections.
Donald Trump Pushes To Become The ”Crypto President”
The BTC purchase was made less than 48 hours after the Trump family announced the launch of its decentralized finance (DeFi) platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI).
After the Trump family teased the decentralized platform for several weeks, the project was officially introduced to the market and was met with both skepticism and excitement.
Trump also attended the annual Bitcoin 2024 conference earlier this year, and made several bullish promises to the event’s attendees. Most notably, the Republican candidate said that he would fire Gary Gensler if he gets elected. He also said that he would create a BTC-backed federal reserve using all of the country’s seized Bitcoin.
Trump wants to make the US the crypto capital of the world as well, and said that all remaining BTC should be mined in the US.
Trump’s embrace of crypto, after calling Bitcoin a ”scam” when he was president, represents a remarkable U-turn. Some analysts wonder whether the pivot is a genuine shift or more a temporary gambit to win votes.
Trump Generated Over $7 Million From His NFT Collections, Holds Over $5 Million In Crypto
Trump has launched numerous NFT (non-fungible token) collections, with personal financial disclosures from earlier this year revealing that the former president has raked in more than $7 million from them.
Data from Arkham Intelligence shows that Trump holds over $5.98 million worth of crypto as well. This comes after recent price increases boosted his portfolio’s value by over $102K in the last 24 hours.
Ethereum (ETH), USD Coin (USDC) and other smaller coins make up Trump’s portfolio. Data shows that he holds 439.518 ETH valued at approximately $1.2 million, and 137.149K USDC.
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