Trump isn’t a fan of bitcoin. Who cares?

It’s all over the mainstream and crypto news outlets; Trump “isn’t a fan” of bitcoin. He doesn’t think they are money; therefore they are not. These are his first pronouncements on crypto since becoming POTUS.

Trump didn’t let Facebook’s Libra off the hook either. In yet more tweets, he said “it will have little standing or dependability” and then went on about crypto projects needing banking licence: “If Facebook and other companies want to become a bank, they must seek a new Banking Charter and become subject to all Banking Regulations, just like other Banks, both National […] and International.

But he hadn’t finished tweeting; he was evidently on a roll and couldn’t resists taking aim at cryptocurrency and illegal activities: “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.” Oh boy, that old chestnut again!

And finally he’d had enough with tweeting about crypto, but needed to ram his point home with one further outburst: “We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable. 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!”

Fortunately, it seems the markets are deaf to the President’s tweets. Indeed, minutes before Trump unleashed his first tweet about bitcoin, its price rose. As Coindesk wrote today, “BTC is currently changing hands at $11,384 so it seems as though for now, the president’s tweets are having no effect on short-term traders.”

Will Trumps tweets have a long-term effect on the market, and on his administration’s attitude to cryptocurrency? Only time will tell, but for the moment this is just another small bump in the road for bitcoin and the altcoins as they progress toward global adoption.