This long-time Trump figure was pivotal to his orange-pilling

It took months of educating Trump’s team on bitcoin before ever meeting at Trump Tower

article-image

President Donald Trump | noamgalai/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


Trump didn’t take a direct route to Bitcoin — having sold three NFT collections on Polygon long before he met with bitcoin mining executives at Mar-a-Lago last June.

And Trump is obviously no maxi. He and the First Lady have their own memecoins on Solana, not to mention his DeFi project World Liberty Fi has actively courted crypto teams for token swap deals and other types of partnerships.

Still, something clearly happened last year that changed his tune toward bitcoin, which he’d initially called a “scam against the dollar” in the thick of the 2021 bull run.

Turns out that thing was Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort.

On this week’s episode of Empire, David Bailey, CEO at BTC Inc, gave host Jason Yanowitz  the inside scoop on how he and two other Bitcoiners were able to orange-pill Trump heading into election season.

“I was hanging out in Puerto Rico with a friend of mine that lives here and we were sitting around — this is in January 2024 — and like, we’re a company but we are all in on bitcoin, all in emotionally, spiritually, financially. Our mission is hyperbitcoinization and we actually [wonder] all the time, “how do we accelerate hyperbitcoinization?”

“And so, we were sitting around like ‘damn, if we could just get in front of Trump, like we could pitch bitcoin to Trump and get him bought in on it, and it’d be huge for bitcoin.’”

By happenstance, Bailey’s friend could make that connection — through her sister, whose godfather is Manafort. “So she was able to get a call set up with Paul, and so that’s how it got started.”

From there, it took months of Bitcoin education with Trump’s team before getting all the way to the big man, who had one key concern that hadn’t yet been resolved: Bitcoiners say bitcoin is going to destroy the dollar. 

Trump likes the dollar — so what gives?

“And we’re like, ‘well, you know, America built Fort Knox and stored the world’s gold in Fort Knox — that didn’t undermine the dollar; it made the dollar stronger than ever. And if you want the dollar to stay strong into the future, then we got to build the digital Fort Knox and need to have the world’s digital gold stored in America as well. That’s how we get another 200 years of the dollar being relevant.’”

According to Bailey, Trump instantly understood and agreed to the next step — meeting in person at Trump Tower. And the rest is history.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 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.

Industry City | 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.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Featured.png

Research

Helium stands at a pivotal moment in its evolution as a decentralized wireless network, balancing rapid growth, economic restructuring, and global expansion. With accelerated growth in domestic DAUs and Hotspots supporting its network, Helium is leveraging strategic partnerships and innovative proposals to scale internationally. The recent implementation of HIP 138, “Return to HNT,” has unified its token economy under HNT, simplifying participation and strengthening liquidity, while HIP 139’s phase-out of CBRS refocuses efforts on scalable Wi-Fi offload. Meanwhile, governance shifts under HIP 141 raise questions about centralization as Nova Labs consolidates control over the roadmap.

article-image

In 2011, WikiLeaks faced a financial blockade imposed by the US government. It was Bitcoin’s first major test.

article-image

Kado’s founder Emery Andrew spoke to Blockworks about the acquisition and what’s next for the team

article-image

LayerZero’s Bryan Pellegrino chatted with Blockworks about the firm’s next steps and its 10-year runway

article-image

Colosseum co-founder Matty Taylor is seeing “high-performance [Solana] founders showing a lot of interest in private trading technology”

article-image

Executives weigh the growth potential they see in the public stock and private credit/equities arenas

article-image

Players can stake ME, trade tokens and link wallets to climb the leaderboard