Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Democratic candidate for president, scion of the Kennedy family, and noted vaccine skeptic—told a crowd of onlookers in Miami at the Bitcoin 2023 conference that he “will defend the right of self-custody of Bitcoin and other digital assets.”
He then waxed on about Bitcoin’s benefits but clearly said that he was “not an investor” and that he wasn’t onstage “to give investment advice.” However, according to a financial disclosure obtained by CNBC, his family’s trust holds between $100,000 and $250,000 in the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. (The investment, though, generated an income of less than $201.)
The amount in Bitcoin his family trust owns is relatively minuscule compared to his and his family’s string of assets, which include hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, properties worth millions, and a suite of stocks, bonds, and money-market holdings.
“Mr. Kennedy’s investments in Bitcoin were made AFTER he made his speech and BEFORE the June 30th reporting deadline. There is no conflict,” a spokesperson for Kennedy’s campaign said in an email, referring to any perceived conflict of interest between Kennedy’s Bitcoin investment and his Bitcoin boosterism as a presidential candidate.
Kennedy’s newly revealed investment in Bitcoin follows a string of public comments backing the cryptocurrency.
In May, a little more than two weeks after he officially launched his campaign, he tweeted that the “FDIC and SEC have no authority to wage an extralegal war on crypto,” referring to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s insistence that a failed bank give up its crypto business as well as a storm of litigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Shortly after, he appeared as a keynote speaker at the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami, where he made his first public appearance as a presidential candidate and said he wasn’t an investor in the digital asset.
And just three days before he filed his financial disclosure form on June 30, in which he revealed his family’s investment in the cryptocurrency, he continued his Bitcoin boosterism. “Bitcoin is not only a bulwark against totalitarianism and the manipulation of our money supply,” he tweeted, “it points the way toward a future in which government institutions are more transparent and more democratic.”
As president, I will make sure that your right to use and hold Bitcoin is inviolable. Bitcoin is not only a bulwark against totalitarianism and the manipulation of our money supply, it points the way toward a future in which government institutions are more transparent and more… pic.twitter.com/rPkMARieYu
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 27, 2023
Update, July 10, 2023: This article has been updated with a comment from Kennedy’s press team.