What Donald Trump really thinks about Bitcoin

“Go after Bitcoin.”

According to a report this week from the Washington Examiner, which obtained a transcript of former national security advisor John Bolton’s yet-to-be-published tell-all book, “The Room Where it Happened,” President Trump said that once in 2018.

What does that mean? Who knows. The Examiner report adds virtually no context other than the fact that the president apparently said it to his Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. Bolton’s transcript apparently added one layer of interpretation: “Go after Bitcoin [for fraud].”

The truth is, however, we’ve long been well aware of how the president and his administration view Bitcoin (and crypto generally): mainly as a tool for criminals and terrorists, and a threat to the national security advantages that arise from the U.S. dollar’s dominant role in the financial system. 

The only first-hand evidence that digital assets have ever even crossed Trump’s mind came in a tweet thread he posted last July. “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” he declared, adding: “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”

The rant appeared to be triggered by Libra, the proposal for which had been unveiled the month before. “Similarly, Facebook Libra’s ‘virtual currency’ will have little standing or dependability,” the president added.

The money quote came at the end: “We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable,” Trump said. “It is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the World, and it will always stay that way. It is called the United States Dollar!”

Four days later, Secretary Mnuchin put a finer point on things in prepared remarks: “Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have been exploited to support billions of dollars in illicit activity like cybercrime, tax evasion, extortion, ransomware, human trafficking. Many players have attempted to use cryptocurrencies to fund their malign behavior. This is indeed a national security issue.”

If it wasn’t clear enough by then that the administration views crypto as something in between a nuisance and a threat, see the Trump administration’s most recent budget proposal, which called for the Secret Service to be moved back to Mnuchin’s Treasury Department. 

Since 2002, the agency — part of whose mission is to safeguard the U.S. payment system from financial crime —  has been part of the Department of Homeland Security. But now cryptocurrency-related financial crime has risen to a level where the Treasury Department needs it back, the proposal stated.

“Technological advancements in recent decades, such as cryptocurrencies and the increasing interconnectedness of the international financial marketplace, have resulted in more complex criminal organizations and revealed stronger links between financial and electronic crimes and the financing of rogue state actors,” the administration said.

None of this is complicated or surprising. Bitcoin is an out-in-the-open effort to circumvent the state’s power over the money supply. The United States has the most influential money system in the world. The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, which means most international transfers must flow through U.S. banks, not only helps U.S. law enforcement catch money launderers and criminals but gives America an immense national security advantage. 

So as long as there’s a possibility that a digital alternative to the dollar might undermine its role in the world — and thereby U.S. power in the world — it's likely no U.S. president is going to be a big fan. All we learned from this week’s reporting on Bolton’s book is that Trump may have cast aspersions on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in private a year before he did so in public.