President Donald Trump is angry. And he’s taken to Twitter to let the world know how he feels, for a change. This time, cryptocurrency has got his goat—specifically, Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra.
“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,” Trump wrote. “Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”
“Similarly,” the president said, “Facebook Libra’s ‘virtual currency’ will have little standing or dependability. 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.”
And, so there could be no confusion about which currency dominates the good ol’ U-S-of-A, Trump added: “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!”
The president of the United States was then immediately roasted on Crypto Twitter.
(Yes, that sentence now exists in this reality.)
“At least he didn’t call it Bitcon,” wrote Multicoin Capital partner Kyle Samani.
One brave Crypto Twitter soul, however, extended the president an olive branch. “Hey. I’m basically the only guy in the crypto industry who voted for you (or admits it),” Preston Byrne, a partner at Byrne & Storm, P.C., and crypto lawyer extraordinaire wrote on Twitter.
The president had not responded as of press time.
Trump’s comments on Bitcoin and Libra, however, come at interesting time. Just yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before the House Financial Services Committee and answered several questions about Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans. “Libra raises many serious concerns regarding privacy, money laundering, consumer protection, and financial stability,” Powell said, adding later that Facebook’s plans “cannot go forward” if those concerns aren’t addressed.
While the Fed chairman had previously stated he was not “too concerned” about any potential threat that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin might pose to U.S. monetary policy, Powell said yesterday that Libra is a different story, given the size of Facebook’s network and the possibility of “broad adoption” of the company’s digital currency.
That threat is evidently serious enough that the Fed has formed a “working group” in coordination with federal regulators in the U.S. and “central banks and governments around the world to look into” Facebook’s Libra.
Meanwhile, Twitter and the rest of the world awaits the president’s savage nickname for Mark Zuckerberg.
