Former U.S. President Donald Trump, long a skeptic of %Cryptocurrencies, apparently holds up to $500,000 U.S. in an %Ethereum ($ETH) wallet.
Trump’s crypto holdings were recently revealed as part of a filing with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
Trump, who is running for the presidency again in 2024, has a checkered history with digital coins and tokens.
While in office between 2016 and 2020, Trump made critical comments about cryptocurrencies. However, he released a collection of non-fungible token (NFT) trading cards last year featuring images of himself in heroic poses.
The Trump NFT cards sold out within hours of being released.
The regulatory filings show that the Ethereum wallet appears to be connected to the NFTs that Trump’s campaign launched as part of his bid to return to the White House in 2024.
The NFTs, a collection of virtual trading cards that feature illustrations of Trump in poses as a superhero, cowboy, and astronaut, launched for $99 U.S. each in December 2022.
In the past, Trump has been critical of cryptocurrencies and questioned their value.
When in office, Trump tweeted in July 2019 that he was “not a big fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.”
After losing his re-election bid in 2020, Trump said on Fox Business News in June 2021 that Bitcoin, the most widely held cryptocurrency, “just feels like a scam” and made it clear that he prefers fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar.
“I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar. I want the dollar to be the currency of the world. That’s what I’ve always said,” Trump told Fox Business.