At Monday’s World Liberty Financial launch event, hosted by Declutter‘s sister company Rug Radio, former US President Donald Trump has attributed excitement over his own NFT projects to his change of heart towards cryptocurrency.
As the Republican candidate for president explained, Trump saw the majority of his NFT trading cards minted on the Ethereum scaling network Polygon being purchased with cryptocurrency — and his supporters excited about his entry into the space.
“So many people paid this way,” Trump said. “If they had paid in dollars, I would have said this is standard, I would have accepted – and I was blown away.”
Before launching his first NFT collection in December 2022, Trump admitted he wasn’t interested in crypto. In fact, he had previously criticized Bitcoin during his first presidential term, saying he was “not a fan.” In 2021, after leaving the White House, he said in an interview that Bitcoin “just seems like a scam.”
But that’s no longer the case, and seeing him use crypto to buy his NFTs has apparently changed his mind.
“I did ask what percentage was taken between Bitcoin and everything else but with crypto, and it was a huge majority,” he said, noting his surprise at the number of people willing to lend their crypto to his digital cards to give.
“I was a little surprised by that, and it’s been a while — and it opened my eyes,” he said. “But I think my children have opened my eyes more than anything.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward