We all remember where we were when president Donald Trump stood in front of a large crowd and promised to create a “crypto army” to defeat former president Joe Biden in the presidential race of 2024. It was the start of a revolution. I could not believe my ears.
But then Trump took it a step further by promising to free Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road and the crypto community’s favorite hero, after his mother pleaded with him at a campaign. It was surreal, but he didn’t stop.
Trump kept talking about us, about Bitcoin, and promising to free the industry from the shackles that Biden and specifically former SEC chair Gary Gensler had it in.
It felt glorious, and the crypto elites all rallied around him almost instantly, because finally, here was a guy running for the most powerful job on the planet, saying with his own mouth, that he’ll stand by crypto enthusiasts. It’s never happened before, so of course we all fell for him, including myself.
When he got shot at during that fateful campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the crypto community was beside itself with horror. Here was our hero, missing death by just a few inches. If they had gotten him, it would have been over for us.
But they didn’t, and after he got back on his feet, Trump promised to fire Gary on “Day 1,” he also promised to mine all of the remaining Bitcoins in the world in America, while on a mission to make it the “crypto capital of the planet.”
Gemini’s Winklevoss twins, Ripple executives, Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson, Strategy’s Michael Saylor, Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, and many others in the industry donated to his campaign. And after an outstanding run, beating both Biden and his supposed successor Kamala Harris, Trump won the election.
He became president again, making history as both the first person to ever do that and also the first person to call himself “crypto president,” a title we’d seemingly reserved for El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele. But seeing as Nayib is a huge fan of Trump himself, we don’t think he cares very much about that at all.
January, the first disappointment
Precisely two days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, he decided to launch a meme coin, calling it $TRUMP. Then less than 48 hours later, his wife Melania also launched hers, $MELANIA.
Both turned out to be sloppy rug pulls, and investors lost billions, while Trump and his backers allegedly made $350 million cumulatively.
Trump had promised us a national Bitcoin reserve during the campaign, inspired by the ever-iconic Senator Cynthia Lummis, but the executive order for that didn’t come until January 23rd, and he called it a “Digital Asset Stockpile.”
It didn’t mention Bitcoin at all, just stablecoins because apparently, they are the key to keeping the Almighty dollar on top. He then said he was gonna ban CBDCs too.
Of course the industry found all that weird and while we were all scrambling to understand exactly what our hero is doing, we failed to see that he actually has absolutely no idea what he’s doing himself. Trump’s exact words were:
“We’re promoting and protecting the sovereignty of the United States dollar, including through actions to promote the development and growth of lawful and legitimate dollar-backed stablecoins worldwide.”
There was a ton of backlash, but then he’d free Ross, so the community decided to wait on him a bit, give him the benefit of the doubt. And boy, it is a little embarrassing to see how wrong we were.
February, the second disappointment
The elites clearly applied some financial pressure on Mr. Donald Trump, because out of nowhere whilst in the middle of unnecessary trade wars with three different countries, the president finally announced that he was launching a crypto strategic reserve.
But get this, his first announcement only mentioned SOL, ADA, and XRP, which was a little weird. Though after being called out, he threw us a bone by going like, “Oops, yes, Bitcoin too, and Ether. I love them!” That was March 6th.
On March 7th, he hosted the first-ever White House crypto summit, with attendees like Brian, Brad Garlinghouse, Crypto Czar David Sacks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Michael Saylor, and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.
But even that was nothing but pure disappointment. The Bitcoin reserve’s executive order had said that the US wouldn’t be buying any more Bitcoin but would instead use the ones it already got, through forceful seizures over the years.
At the summit, Trump said America wouldn’t sell any of its Bitcoin, then followed up with a reality-inducing comment:
“From this day on, America will follow the rule that every Bitcoin [holder] knows very well. Never sell your Bitcoin. And that’s a little phrase that they have. I don’t know if that’s right or not. Who the hell knows, right?” he said.
Take a look at Bitcoin maxi Saylor’s reaction to that in the picture below. It’s the same as this author’s:
While Trump was signing the executive order in the Oval with David Sacks, David was explaining to him that this order will be fulfilling the promises he made to make America the crypto leader and free crypto users, Trump said: “I said that? And this is something you believe in, right?”
The truth of the matter is Trump never had any real plan for crypto, he doesn’t understand anything about it, or how it even works. And he could care less about our beliefs. He’s actually more of a crypto hostage than hero at this point.
He’s not quite sure what to do with us, but since our elites have spent hundreds of millions of dollars and sees more coming via alleged insider trades, he has no choice but to humor us every once in a while, kind of like he’s doing with Elon Musk, but hey, that’s a different story for a different article.
Trump is not the hero crypto wanted, but he’s the one we got, and we’re stuck to him now.
Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/trump-has-no-idea-when-it-comes-to-crypto/