After characterizing Central Bank Digital Currencies as “tyranny” just last month, Donald Trump just said at a town hall that he’s—at the very least—aware of Bitcoin’s growing popularity.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked the 77-year-old Republican front-runner about cryptocurrencies ahead of the Feb. 24 South Carolina Republican primaries, first bringing up Central Bank Digital Currencies—digital mintings of Fiat currencies—while alluding to China’s push for a digital currency to increase government control.
“But isn’t the next logical step for you to embrace Bitcoin? Because obviously it’s decentralized—the government can’t get its hands on it,” Ingraham asked.
“I like the dollar, but a lot of people are doing it, and frankly it has taken on a life of its own,” Trump responded. “You probably have to do some regulation, as you know, but many people are embracing it, and more and more I’m seeing people wanting to pay with Bitcoin.”
Trump on Jan. 19 vowed to never allow a digital dollar if reelected, calling such a thing “a dangerous threat to freedom,” but his relationship with Web3 tech has always been a bit more complicated than that. He’s reportedly had millions of dollars in a digital wallet and made millions more from licensed sales of NFTs.
But rejecting a digital dollar remains a Republican talking point. In September, after the measure was reintroduced by Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the House Financial Service Committee pushed forward the CBDC Anti-Surveillance Act.
“This is not just alarming—it’s downright un-American,” Emmer said at the time. “We’ve already seen examples of governments weaponizing their financial system against their citizens.”
Even those more in favor of CBDCs, here or abroad, have expressed concerns over privacy. The Bank of England recently unveiled a framework to start designing a digital pound, with the proposal outlining how the bank would maintain the ledger but all wallets would be private and all user data would be anonymized.