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Elaine McCallig
Jan 04, 2022
Melania Trump is now apparently shilling Bitcoin weeks after launching her own non-fungible token (NFT) venture.
Tweeting yesterday from her official account, the former first lady wrote: “It is widely reported that Bitcoin’s market cap exceeds USD$1 Trillion. Today marks the 13th anniversary of the Bitcoin Genesis Block. Happy Anniversary. #SatoshiNakamoto #MelaniaNFT.”
Bitcoin was launched in January 2009 by pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
Trump’s tweet follows news that Bitcoin’s mining hashrate - a metric measuring the total computational power used to process transactions - hit an all-time high ahead of the cryptocurrency’s 13th anniversary over the weekend.
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People seemed perplexed by her tweet, with some questioning how much she knows about the cryptocurrency:
Amazing former First Lady stuff here https://t.co/b4YmctFUuh— Molly Jong-Fast (@Molly Jong-Fast) 1641249214
@MELANIATRUMP https://t.co/uOVGjTcZhk— Dan Held (@Dan Held) 1641249728
@MELANIATRUMP Didn’t see that one coming https://t.co/9NbudeS8vW— Matt丰 (@Matt丰) 1641250060
@MELANIATRUMP https://t.co/4T9m6NswxU— Rafael Schultze-Kraft (@Rafael Schultze-Kraft) 1641249696
@MELANIATRUMP Melanie, do explain all you know about Bitcoin. I am truly interested— Anamarija Wagner (@Anamarija Wagner) 1641248825
@MELANIATRUMP 100% chance you don’t know what any of this means— Mikra_Venus (@Mikra_Venus) 1641249122
@MELANIATRUMP Explain it. You can’t. Am I rite?— Jonathan Long 🍌 (@Jonathan Long 🍌) 1641252365
@MELANIATRUMP @evankaloudis “Bitcoin is great, buy my NFT”— wiz (@wiz) 1641250499
@MELANIATRUMP Please educate your husband on the matter.— JCS 🇨🇴⚡ (@JCS 🇨🇴⚡) 1641249982
Her apparent backing of Bitcoin follows Trump launching her own NFT endeavour, offering a watercolour painting of her eyes and a complimentary voice message.
Created by artist Marc-Antonie Coulon, the digital artwork titled “Melania’s Vision” was up for sale during December costing one unit of SOL cryptocurrency (approximately $150) and included an audio recording with a “message of hope”.
Her husband former US President Donald Trump seemingly attempted to advertise the digital asset while also slamming cryptocurrencies in a recent interview.
He said: “Look, I want a currency called the dollar, I don’t want to have all these others — and that can be an explosion someday like the likes of which we’ve never seen. It’ll make the big tech explosion look like baby stuff. I think it’s a very dangerous thing.”
In June 2021, he also said Bitcoin “seems like a scam”.
He added: “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.”
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