https://gizmodo.com/trump-turns-crypto-bitcoin-into-test-patriotism-1851535862
Former president Donald Trump is now fully embracing Bitcoin, flipping his stance after saying he was "not a fan" of crypto five years ago.
its a flexible valuation he can manipulate with words and far less regulation. makes sense for a public con artist
This is it. He had a taste of pump and dump securities fraud with the SPAC. He has spotted a new scam.
Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday. “Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin only helps China, Russia, and the Radical Communist Left. We want all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE USA!!! It will help us be ENERGY DOMINANT!!!”
Didn't COMMUNIST China ban it mostly because it was putting strain on their grid? Not sure how wasting states worth of electricity to fuel a glorified ponzi scheme is going to help with energy dominance but who am I to question the self-proclaimed genius.
I just... I... what goes through this man's head? Why is literally every sentence he spews completed bullshit? And why do so many people fall for it?
The broad masses of a nation [...] more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie
Yeah it's telling that this grifter is talking about Bitcoin when most other cryptos are massively more efficient. Even within crypto bitcoin is an obsolete technology. This is more for the like coal sector than crypto.
Yes, some of the biggest crypto providers are de facto chinese. They trade big time, always have. When techno idealists in the west were still discussing Bitcoin as a free currency over a decade ago, china already ran gigantic crypto miner farms and saw it only as a speculative asset. They knew from the very first day it‘s not about using crypto, but making money trading and holding it.
“Bitcoin mining may be our last line of defense against a CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency],” Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday.
lol, no shot he wrote this.
He did just have a fund raiser in SF with some billionaire crypto bros....so he may not have
Everyone who has not regarded crypto as a scam will certainly do, once he's done with the pump and dump he's setting up here.
I dunno man, the trumpets still buy whatever shit he shovels out and they don't seem to have caught on that he's a scammer yet...
Bitcoin is only a few points off it's all time high... Who's getting scammed by that?
(On the other hand I would recommend switching to a sustainable crypto.)
What I expect will happen: have his followers buy in at current high price point -> price goes higher -> him and his rich whale friends sell -> price goes down -> the people who just invested because he promised big stonks but realistically can't afford to leave their money in for years panic and sell -> price goes down -> him and rich friends buy in again.
Sure, it's mostly his followers getting scammed, but if this does happen I can't imagine them not vocally blaming BTC for losing their money - which would likely fuel the crypto is a scam narrative.
Maybe his words are not influential enough to actually sway the price and nothing will come of it though, but based on the previous things he has done (his NFTs, the truth social stocks) if he has the opportunity to take money from his supporters, he certainly will.
Crypto isn't a scam, though lots of cryptocurrencies are scams. Don't buy crypto to try to get rich or even as an investment, get it if you want to buy stuff with it. Monero is a great cryptocurrency for that, and you can tell it's doing well by how many countries are threatened enough by it to make it harder to get (it has truly private transactions, just like cash).
I don't think he's doing any sort of pump and dump, he just wants crypto bros to vote for him. He tried courting libertarians at their convention (and rightfully got booed), and now he's courting crypto bros specifically (many libertarians are into crypto). He's just trying to expand his base a bit.
I didn't say crypto was a scam, but it is regarded as a scam in general and as you said, it's pretty easy to get scammed trading it or using it if you don't know what you're doing - which would definitely be true for anyone buying in on a public figure's advice.
It's also an incredibly volatile market which is relatively easily influenced by large players without much regulation. If he does have the influence to manage to impact it, I am pretty sure he would happily take his gains from his followers. If he doesn't, well let's just hope all the people who buy in without any research don't lose their money by selling as soon as the next crypto winter comes for a massive loss.
You're strongly implying it:
Everyone who has not regarded crypto as a scam will certainly do
It is easy to get scammed, but it's also easy to get scammed with legitimate-sounding services. I just had a scammer try to steal my money from my bank by claiming to be the fraud department, does that mean the banking industry is a scam? People on the sidelines will try to make a buck in any industry. What about cosmetics? There are plenty of MLMs that peddle cosmetics, and they're scams, but that doesn't make all cosmetics or even MLMs scams (e.g. tupperware is an MLM and not a scam imo).
Whether crypto is a volatile market doesn't have anything to do with being a scam, it just increases the number of people trying to make a quick buck, and some of those will try to pump and dump or pull some other scam. Before crypto, that was more common with stocks, and it's fairly common today with third party resellers of various things.
I don't think Trump is trying to pull a crypto scam here, I think he's just trying to get elected. He wants the scammers to promote him, as well as the crypto apologists. He just wants more people talking about him so he can increase his chances of being elected.
Sorry, but I think you're reading into my words something they didn't say or imply. In fact I tried my best to avoid wording it in a way that implies crypto is a scam (because I don't believe it myself).
What you've quoted strictly implies 2 things:
The 2nd is definitely an exaggeration, but neither of them claim crypto is a scam only that it has an image that it is - which I maintain it does with a significant portion of people.
I do think trump picked crypto as a target for his attention because it's a volatile and under regulated market he may be able exploit to try to make money off of whoever listens to him. I hope I'm wrong though.
I apologize, there's a lot of anti-crypto group think here on Lemmy, and your comment read like that. There absolutely are a lot of crypto scams and reasons to dislike the technology generally, but there are real problems being solved and ways to use the technology productively, so I get a bit aggressive in pointing out that the group think is imprecise at best.
The second being an exaggeration is what made it look like group think.
trump... make money
Idk, I honestly think his entire focus is on getting elected. Yeah, he wouldn't say no to more money, but I think it's in service of getting himself onto office again, not to get even more rich. I think he saw hating crypto as advantageous in the past, and now he sees supporting crypto as advantageous.
Yeah, maybe it's just a grift. I guess we'll see.
Here's the evidence I see:
I think he's trying to convince conservative leaning libertarians, single-issue RFK voters (he's pro-crypto too), and other fringe voters to vote for him instead of whatever protest vote they'd normally go with. He's not trying to appeal to Biden voters, he's trying to pull protest votes back in.
No problem!
Your thinking seems more insightful than mine.
My reasoning that he is mainly after the money is that in the past year he has been paying a lot of legal fees and fines, while trying to run a campaign. He had his NFT collection which made him a quick buck to then immediately floor in value, same for trump media stocks - except they then skyrocketed again, and now flooring again. So.. Just seems like something he'd do.
The 2nd reason is that crypto is a very divisive topic with loads of people hating on it - including banks and some other financial institutions. I'd expect it's a double edged sword for supporters, but maybe he's gaining more from it than losing in terms of votes.
Considering that it's been a few days since he made his statement and there hasn't been massive movement on BTC price, he's either not influential enough to impact it or I was wrong.
/shrug
Yeah, you might have a point. Let's see which scam, electoral or financial, he's trying to pull. Or maybe it's both... I'm guessing things will heat up one way or another as we get closer to the election.
Once again Trump proves himself to be a mere opportunist and grifter without principles or convictions. While in office Steven Mnuchin tried to kill crypto at the behest of the banking industry and Trump was vocal against Bitcoin. Once he left the White House he peddled his own NFTs.
We all know politicians have no morals. The reason he changed his stance is very simply because the crypto industry very well could get him elected. Crypto is a growing concern for a lot of people and he has to see that.
But they're almost all using it STUPIDLY, aren't they?
How many people who purport to have Bitcoin actually hold their own private key?
Now you make a very fair point there. If you hold Bitcoin on an exchange or an ETF or somebody else holds it for you, you don't own Bitcoin. That's for sure. In those cases, you hold an IOU for Bitcoin. And that's worth just about as much as it sounds. In other words, shit.
Safe deposit box?
Everyone who has one, I hope.
It's called a Bitcoin "wallet", too. If someone else is holding yours, it's not your money.
How is that relevant? He's looking for votes, not to change what currencies people use.
Bet Trump has moved campaign money to buying bitcoin through some shady investment vehicle.
It's like trying to watch a 5 year old lie about eatching chocolate, when theres chocolate on their nose.
It would be funny and adorable if he weren't so hateful and racist, with real world consequences.
If this is a move to commit dark money campaign fraud again before his sentencing on the last case of it is even done I would want to see a live reaction of the judge when he hears that
Don’t think anyone is all that surprised by the depths of Trump’s corruption at this point.
A criminal saying that a laughable scam that is mostly used for criminal activity is good? Who would have thought? Oh right, everyone.
He was anti-Bitcoin until recently though. Now suddenly he's all-in on it. Obviously something major has changed. One person speculated that this is to appeal to libertarians. I'm suggesting that along with that, the Saudis, who are in tight with Trump, just announced that they are abandoning the petrodollar and are considering trading in Bitcoin.
Way too overthinking it for Trump. Some criminal puppeteer just paid him a lot of funds in bitcoin.
“Bitcoin mining may be our last line of defense against a CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency],” Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday. “Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin only helps China, Russia, and the Radical Communist Left. We want all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE USA!!! It will help us be ENERGY DOMINANT!!!”
I love using social media, but I sure miss the politics of the pre-social-media era. The craziness levels were considerably lower.
I agree with you, but then I just thought of the political eras that gave us Nazis, Stalin and the gulags, Mao and the Cultural Revolution and thought hmm politics could be crazy before, also.
Wait so the play is to make us push bitcoin BECAUSE its a huge energy hog to float fossil fuels prices UP?
Honestly wtf kind of policy is this?
Like at least white nationalist pull in 2016 was pretty clear cut, but who the hell is that even for? Like what chud libertarian wants to see the government artificial increase energy prices?
there was a time when conspiracy loons would fearmonger about "digital currency" and "cashless society" and yet here we are...
They still are.
Bitcoin mining may be our last line of defense against a CBDC [Central Bank Digital Currency],” Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday
Don't use the imaginary digital currency made by the deep state. Use this specific digital currency that I have a huge financial interest in!
This dude probably has a much bigger stake in USD than BTC. The main difference is that USD always loses value.
He realized that if you have a large number of people on remote control, you can do pretty well with Ponzi schemes.
Phew, can finally cross this off my short list of things he hasn't been completely hypocritical about.
Bitcoin doesn't move like the stock market. There's no hedge funds to call to naked short a nonexistent Bitcoin Inc in to the dirt. This means nothing.
That said I'd live bitcoin to go to a penny. I'd buy and hodl. I'd buy and hodl hard.
That said, fuck Trump. But not literally because his lineage should be pruned.
Monero is what Bitcoiners thought they bought. It's completely fungible and private just as cash is supposed to be.
Monero is great. Only crypto currency I actually use. Transactions are also waaay cheaper and faster than with Bitcoin.
It's also the one being targeted by governments, who are trying harder and harder to track consumer spending.
Even if you don't like crypto generally, consider using Monero as a middle finger to governments. Don't hold any long term, just make a few purchases here and there.
I think it's worth using long-term. If they are targeting it so hard, that must mean that it actually works. Because otherwise, why would they be going after it so damn hard?
Exactly. I don't think they can track transactions, so the next best thing is to make it illegal. If more people use it for regular transactions, it's even harder for them to ban.
Problem is, is that they can't even really truly make it illegal. As long as any cryptocurrency is legal, no matter what it is, you can always buy Monero, either with it or by exchanging it for Bitcoin or Litecoin and then exchanging that for Monero. Also, the decentralized exchange, Haveno launched a month ago today and there is no way to shut it down. It's a peer to peer decentralized exchange all done over the tor network. Good luck without killing the internet entirely.
It's also completely unsustainable like bitcoin. There's no long term future in proof-of-work.
Monero uses RandomX which must be done only on CPU which limits power consumption drastically and promotes decentralization rather than mining farms like bitcoin. Both of those combined will make it much easier for utilities to handle it. Since one utility won't be getting hit with extreme load from mining farms all in one single area, such as Texas. You've also got to consider how much electricity does the banking industry as a whole use for building their buildings, bringing employees to work, shuttling money around in armored trucks, all that stuff. There's probably tons I'm not even thinking of. Proof of work is better than proof of stake simply because a governmyth can't print more of their crap fiat currency and buy up more stake in order to hurt the network. If a government wants to attack Ethereum, they just print more fiat currency and buy Ethereum. If they want to attack Bitcoin or Monero, they have to buy the equipment to do so and then plug it in and use power. They would have to sacrifice something real in order to do that.
Tin-foil hat time but I'd be willing to bet they have mechanisms to do something resembling naked shorting with crypto. I have no idea what that voodoo might be, but they conjure shares out of thin air for shorting stocks, and they've managed to package crypto into ETFs some-fucking-how so why not. I feel like I'm increasingly noticing that nothing really seems to crash anymore.
Bitcoin has been moving like the stock market since 2020. Big investors got involved, small investors lost trust in stocks. I don't fully expect the current halving to cause the rally like all the other times it halved. That is assuming it doesn't keep bombing shortly after breaking $69,420, what I suspect is a meme sell limit price.
Everybody sell. You know how you can't really tell when a stock is going to tank? Well, this time it's like we're doing economics with training wheels. You won't get hurt, and you can see what's coming. You just gotta sell now before the floor drops out.