Donald Trump used Bitcoin to buy cheeseburgers and beer for his supporters at a bar in New York City on the National Cheeseburger Day.
This made Trump the first ever incumbent or former US president to make a payment using the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, according to media reports.
The Republican presidential candidate visited PubKey, a Bitcoin-themed bar and restaurant in Manhattan, shortly before his Long Island campaign rally on Wednesday.
The 78-year-old was helped by the bar’s employees to perform the transaction using his phone and a tablet belonging to PubKey.
“I just made the first transaction in Bitcoin,” Trump announced to cheers from Bitcoin enthusiasts, who packed the establishment. Paying with cryptocurrency was “very easy,” he added.
“They have been treating you very badly at the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) and we are going to treat you very fairly,” he told the crowd.
“Get out and vote because if you vote, we cannot lose,” the former president said.
The purchase of burgers by Trump “was one of the most important Bitcoin transactions of all time,” one of PubKey’s owners, Thomas Pacchia, told the Bitcoin Magazine. “We are very excited he was here… to show his support to the Bitcoin community.”
Bitcoin, which was introduced in 2009, has grown in value by more than 500% during the past five years. The current price for one Bitcoin is above $61,000.
On Monday, Trump and his children unveiled their own cryptocurrency venture, called World Liberty Financial. There is so far little information available about the project, which is expected to be a borrowing and lending service to trade cryptocurrencies. According to Donald Trump Jr., its goal is to provide opportunities to entrepreneurs who are unable to obtain financing from traditional banks.
Trump appears to have made a U-turn on cryptocurrencies during the current presidential campaign. In 2021, he told Fox News that they were a “scam” and “potentially a disaster waiting to happen.” The dollar should remain “the currency of the world,” and investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies “hurts the US currency,” he argued at the time.