Crypto-friendly RFK Jr. suspends independent presidential bid

“In an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election,” he said in his remarks

article-image

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | lev radin/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Friday that he was suspending his independent presidential bid and throwing his support behind Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term as US president. 

The announcement took place during a speech in Phoenix, Arizona. Kennedy’s team, ahead of the event, said the speech would address his “path forward.”

“In an honest system, I believe that I would have won the election,” he said in his remarks, during which he sharply criticized the Biden administration. 

Rumors swirled earlier this week that Kennedy planned to drop out and endorse presidential hopeful Donald Trump. NBC News reported that the two campaigns were even plotting a joint appearance. The two were also speakers earlier this year at Bitcoin 2024. 

Earlier this week, Kennedy’s running mate Nicole Shanahan noted in a podcast appearance that their campaign had a limited set of options, which included staying in or “joining forces” with former President Donald Trump. 

Kennedy’s official independent platform focused on small businesses, bitcoin and blockchain technology — which he claimed are “essential to human freedom — and “tax fairness” among other issues. 

He, like Trump, also made an appearance at Bitcoin 2024 back in July. 

Kennedy told Blockworks earlier this year that he’s “happy” about Trump’s crypto commitment. 

“I think it’s a good thing for our country. Commitment to crypto is a commitment to freedom and transparency. I’m not going to question if it was a political decision, I’m happy he did it,” he said at the Consensus conference back in May.

At the same conference — way before President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race — Kennedy claimed that he could beat Trump.

However, his campaign has since faced a few hardships since then including slowing campaign contributions and losing out on some ballots, including New York.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

recent research

LTIPPanalysis.png

Research

This report is a retroactive analysis of Arbitrum's Long Term Incentives Pilot Program (LTIPP). We collect relevant data at a protocol level and review bi-weekly updates to analyze recipients, their strategies, and the impact of the incentives on high level growth metrics. In particular, we want to highlight outperformers and underperformers, and glean any best practices or lessons learned for protocols distributing ARB incentives in the future. The overarching goal is to synthesize lessons learned that the DAO can reference as it begins thinking about future incentives programs–namely, the working group for incentives that is being actively discussed–especially as Timeboost introduces new conditions for trading and economic activity.

article-image

Sponsored

AI project Zerebro intersects the spheres of artificial intelligence, finance, art, music, and culture

article-image

Allmight is focused on furthering the United States’ leadership in crypto

article-image

The conditions Charles Schwab is waiting for before jumping headfirst into crypto could take shape soon

article-image

The FCA’s director of payments and digital assets shared some takeaways from chats with crypto companies and law firms

article-image

Let’s take a look at how US equities typically perform this time of year and what we might see in the coming days

article-image

Lumina introduces transparency and permissionless integration via an OP stack-based optimium, challenging traditional oracle designs