In his desperation for campaign cash, Trump is courting crypto bros by promising that he will be nice to them when he becomes President. Last week, he spoke at a conference for Bitcoin enthusiasts and pretended to know what Bitcoin is and how it works.
This week, he appeared on Fox Business to further flaunt his expertise. In the video clip posted to Xitter by Aaron Rupar, the host asked him, "What about crypto? You spoke at that crypto conference last weekend, and you said that you'd like crypto to have a more prominent space in America. How will —"
Before she could finish her question, Trump cut her off. "You have to understand about crypto. Crypto is a very interesting thing, very high level in certain ways, intellectually very high level." Trump has little patience for people who aren't at the same intellectually very high level that he is. He likes to remind people that he had a cousin or uncle who went to MIT, which makes him an expert in all matters of math, science, and technology. All he had to do was hear the word "bitcoin" and he instantly knew more about it than Satoshi Nakamoto.
Trump warned, "But if we don't do it, China is going to do it. China is going to do it anyway. But if we don't do it, China is doing it. China is already doing it." That's interesting, considering that China has outlawed cryptocurrency mining, calling it an "obsolete industry." Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are heavily regulated in China.
He also thinks Bitcoin is a bottomless money source he can tap into without doing any work, much like Trump University. "Who knows," he said, "maybe we'll pay off our 35 trillion dollars, hand them a little crypto check, right? We'll hand them a little Bitcoin and wipe out our 35 trillion dollars." That would be a neat trick, considering Bitcoin's current market cap is approximately $780 billion, and the U.S. government currently holds about 210,000 bitcoins, worth about $13.5 billion, or 0.04% of $35 trillion. I guess I'm not very intellectually very high level because I don't understand his math.
The Fox News host finally managed to sneak in a question: "How do you want it to be more prominent in America? How will that work?"
Instead of answering the question, he said, "Oh, it's going to work easily. It's already prominent. It's moving along. It's very loosely regulated. That's one of the reasons it's moving along, but it is a different form of a currency and it's going to end up benefiting the country."
But how? How will it work, Donald? The convicted fraudster/rapist wasn't in the mood to share that information. Instead, he pivoted to take a jab at President Biden, a person he is not running against.
"But if we shut it down, like Biden's trying to shut it down… Biden doesn't have the intellect to shut it down. Can you imagine this guy telling you to shut something down like that? He has no idea what the hell it is."
A critique from someone who thinks "smart contracts" means his prenups.
