U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump announced at a Bitcoin conference last Saturday that if he is elected president, he will establish a strategic reserve of Bitcoin. However, Nobel laureate in economics in 2008, Paul Krugman, is quite skeptical about this. He recently criticized Bitcoin as economically useless and accused Trump of supporting industries that are full of scandals, destroying values, and the environment.
Donald Trump, the U.S. presidential candidate, attended a Bitcoin conference last Saturday and presented his political views on the cryptocurrency industry to many Bitcoin supporters. He stated that if elected president, he will establish a national strategic reserve of Bitcoin, never selling the Bitcoins owned by the U.S. government, and mentioned that those attacking cryptocurrencies are “left-wing fascist elements.”
However, in a recent article published in The New York Times, Paul Krugman, the Nobel laureate in economics in 2008, expressed deep skepticism about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and concerns about their growing influence in U.S. politics.
Krugman first emphasized the economic uselessness of Bitcoin. He criticized the strong support of the Republican Party for cryptocurrencies, pointing out that although Trump had previously called Bitcoin a scam against the U.S. dollar, he is now a staunch advocate for Bitcoin, aligning with the position of Trump’s deputy, J.D. Vance, and some tech billionaires.
Krugman pointed out that Vance has proposed legislation favorable to the cryptocurrency industry and has received support from tech giants like Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund has invested $200 million in cryptocurrencies, but he warned that this tech trend, while appearing to be populist, ultimately serves the interests of a few wealthy individuals and masks the dubious economic value and potential risks of cryptocurrencies.
Questioning Trump’s relief of scandal-ridden industries, Krugman also stated that many proponents of cryptocurrencies now seem to believe that they can obtain crucial political support through Trump. They have successfully incorporated some of their most important wishes into the 2024 Republican Party platform, which mentions that “Republicans will end the illegal and un-American suppression of cryptocurrencies by Democrats and oppose the creation of CBDC.”
