In summary
- Days after announcing the launch of decentralized finance (DeFi) platform World Liberty Financial, former US President Donald Trump used Bitcoin to buy burgers at Bitcoin bar PubKey in Manhattan.
- Trump expressed hope that the Republican Party would win in New York in the upcoming elections and encouraged crypto enthusiasts to go out and vote.
- Trump warned that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins in November, crypto startups will be “living in hell” under the SEC’s regulatory regime.
Days after announcing the launch of decentralized finance (DeFi) platform World Liberty Financial during an interview with Decrypt’s sister company Rug Radio, former US President Donald Trump used Bitcoin to buy burgers yesterday during a stop at the Bitcoin bar PubKey in Manhattan.
Bitcoin supporters at the bar helped Trump through the process, which included scanning a QR code with a smartphone and then seemingly approving the transaction. After a moment of uncertainty about whether the transaction went through, one of the men helping Trump said, “Oh, it did go through!”
During the stop at the Bitcoin-themed bar in New York, Trump expressed hope that the Republican Party would win in New York in the upcoming US elections.
“It’s a great event, I just made the first transaction in Bitcoin,” Trump said to cheers from the crowd, encouraging crypto enthusiasts to get out and vote this November.
“Get out and vote, because if you vote, we can’t lose,” Trump said. “They’ve been treating you very badly at the SEC and we’re going to treat you very fairly, but you have to get out and vote.”
On Monday, Trump warned that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins in November, crypto startups will be “living in hell” under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulatory regime.
“If we don’t win the election, those people who were under investigation and are now free as the wind,” Trump said, “and the people who weren’t being investigated in the crypto world, they’re going to be living in hell—because it’s going to start the day after the election if they win.”
Cryptocurrency has become a political issue in Washington with Trump, a former Bitcoin skeptic, shifting his stance to that of a cryptocurrency advocate. Trump has launched multiple NFT collections on the Ethereum scaling network, which the Republican presidential candidate credits for his change of heart on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin is often seen as a better store of value than a means of making everyday payments, and some Crypto Twitter commentators have taken to criticizing the idea of asking Trump to pay with BTC in the real world.
When asked about the experience of using Bitcoin to buy burgers for the crowd, Trump noted how easy it was.
“It’s the beginning of a new era,” Trump said. “What they’ve done is so astonishing in a short period of time, and when you look at the values and the kind of numbers you’re talking about, they’re bigger than the biggest corporations in the world combined, many of them. So it’s pretty impressive.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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