The Republican candidate Donald Trump has raised donations of more than 4 million dollars in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for his election campaign.Â
Trump is a candidate in the presidential elections on November 5, during which he will likely face the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, as well as the independent Robert Kennedy Jr.Â
Donations in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to Donald Trump
The various candidates are raising funds to finance their electoral campaign.Â
These funds come to them through donations, and the data are in fact public.Â
According to what was revealed to CNBC by a collaborator of Trump’s campaign, in a document filed by supporters of the Trump 47 Committee with the Federal Election Commission, it was declared that they received donations in BTC, ETH, XRP, USDC, and various memecoins, for a total amount exceeding 4 million dollars.Â
Trump has long been accepting donations in cryptocurrencies, so much so that in 2022 he even put NFTs on the market that were sold in exchange for ETH.Â
In March for example, his crypto wallet had come to contain cryptocurrencies with a total market value of about 7.5 million dollars.Â
These cryptocurrencies were the ones cashed in by Trump in particular with the sale of his NFT, and the 4 million received as donations sent to the Trump 47 Committee arrived at a later time.Â
In total, therefore, Trump can count on a treasure of over 11 million dollars in cryptocurrencies to use for financing his electoral campaign.Â
The amounts
11 million dollars for a presidential election campaign in the USA, to tell the truth, are not many, nowadays.Â
However, it is still a significant figure, but it pales in comparison to the donations in dollars.Â
For example, the challenger Kamala Harris raised 81 million dollars in 24 hours after the endorsement from President Joe Biden, who indicated her as his successor, inviting the democrats to donate funds for her campaign.Â
The same Trump in May received 35 million dollars in donations after receiving the guilty verdict in the corruption case against him.Â
Until today, overall Trump risulta to have raised a total of more than 470 million dollars over time to finance his 2024 election campaign, and of these, only a little more than 220 million have been spent so far.Â
In light of this data, the 4 million received in cryptocurrencies turn out to be almost irrelevant.Â
The total amount raised by Harris so far, amounting to almost 460 million dollars, is at the same level, while Robert Kennedy Jr. stops just above 100 million. The other candidates are all well below 20 million, or even below 10.Â
Donald Trump, Bitcoin and the crypto
One of the topics on which the electoral clash revolves this year in the USA is cryptocurrencies.Â
Obviously, they are not at all the main topic, but Trump has focused on them a lot.Â
On the other hand, many democrats in recent years have expressed strong opposition to the crypto market, and this has opened the doors to the republicans.Â
In the USA there are quite a few supporters of the crypto sector, or those who own cryptocurrencies, so they still constitute a useful electoral base.Â
In fact, the current Democratic president Joe Biden this year has made a shift in the seemingly anti-crypto market policies in the USA, probably to avoid losing too many votes.Â
The electoral system
The United States electoral system stipulates that the candidate who wins the presidential elections is the one who obtains the most state delegates, and these are assigned State by State to the individual candidate who receives the most votes in that particular State. The larger States assign more delegates.Â
So it is not so important to get more votes than the opponents, but to win in the key States.Â
In fact, some States already seem assigned, because they have historically been dominated either by the democrats or the republicans. The candidate who will win is the one who obtains more victories in the swing States.Â
There are therefore some topics that, even if they concern only a portion of potential voters, can be useful to candidates to win in key States.Â
Cryptocurrencies could be one of these topics, and it is possible that Trump has chosen to insist precisely because he believes he can gain an advantage in this way in some specific States.Â
It should not be forgotten that in the past Trump had expressed opposition to cryptocurrencies, but then he changed his mind when he released his NFTs on the market.
Note that tomorrow, Saturday, July 27, will participate in the most important conference on Bitcoin in the world, in Nashville.Â
The democrats and the crypto
The position of many democrats on cryptocurrencies is instead negative.Â
Even President Joe Biden seemed to be against it, but during this 2024, probably for electoral opportunism, he seems to have changed his mind.Â
Instead, nothing is yet known for certain about Kamala Harris’s position on the matter, also because for now she has chosen not to campaign on this topic, neither in a bull nor in a bear way.Â
However, before the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX, many U.S. Democratic politicians received donations from its founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, now in prison, to the point of forming seemingly friendly relationships with him.Â
It is possible that the anti-crypto turn of the Democrats in the USA happened precisely as a result of the failure of FTX, which must have led many politicians to want to distance themselves from such a colossal failure, after receiving funds from its founder.Â
Now the FTX issue is definitively behind us, and the bankruptcy trustee is ready to reimburse the users. In light of this, there would be nothing surprising if many democratic politicians apparently opposed to the crypto market were to change their minds.Â