Donald Trump says he'll accept crypto for campaign donations

Former U.S. President Donald Trump said today that hell ensure cryptocurrency can be used for his campaign donations.

In multiple video clips uploaded to X by Frank Degods, a non-fungible token creator and influencer, Trump appeared to tell a group of buyers of his NFTs that he intends to accept campaign donations in crypto.

“If you can‘t, I’ll make sure you can,” Trump said. “Can we donate to the Trump campaign using crypto？ I believe the answer is yes.”

Trump also told the crowd that President Joe Biden “doesnt even know” what cryptocurrency is. “If you like crypto in any form, and it comes in a lot of different forms, if you are in favor of crypto, you better vote for Trump,” he added.

Trump appeared to have made the remarks at a gathering he organized to meet and dine with buyers of his “Mugshot Edition” NFTs on his day off from trial. Those invited to the dinner individually purchased more than 47 NFTs, each priced at $99, Axios reported, citing a copy of the dinner invitation.

“We did it when NFTs were not hot. We made NFTs hot again,” Trump added.

In response to a question about whether he would keep crypto businesses in the U.S., Trump said that he‘ll work to retain them in the country. “If crypto is moving out of the U.S. because of hostility toward crypto… well, we’ll stop it. We don‘t want that,” Trump said. “If we’re going to embrace it, we have to let them be here.”

The “Jeo Boden” memecoin, a joke token based on U.S. President Joe Biden, jumped 18.5% over the past 24 hours as of 10:40 p.m. ET on Wednesday following Trump's comment on the token, according to CoinMarketCap data.

“That's a lot of money for a coin. I don't like that investment,” Trump said after hearing that the BODEN token had $240 million in market capitalization.

Electric Capital Co-founder Avichal Garg wrote in an X post that it is “amazing to see the evolution” from Trump on crypto. “Whoever is coaching him on this issue is crushing it,” Garg said, adding that if Biden stays anti-crypto, “the downstream consequence is crypto goes from Anti-Gensler to Anti-Biden to anti-Democrats.”

Trump is currently the Republican candidate for the upcoming U.S. presidential election in November 2024. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to The Blocks request for further comment.