Crypto won’t suppress US dollar: Anthony Scaramucci

Financier Anthony Scaramucci believes Donald Trump has embraced bitcoin because it’s actually a booster for US dollar supremacy.

Financier Anthony Scaramucci believes Donald Trump has embraced bitcoin because it’s actually a plus for US dollar supremacy. Picture: AFP

American financier Anthony Scaramucci believes Donald Trump has embraced bitcoin because it’s actually a plus for US dollar supremacy, as well as a vote winner.

“And they’re saying to him something which I absolutely believe: that bitcoin, in fact, is not going to hurt US dollar [or be] suppressive,” Mr Scaramucci said at a Sydney crypto conference on Monday.

“But if anything, it could help us dollar supremacy.

“And if we can introduce fair stable coin legislation in the United States, if anything, if we can create an electronic version of the US dollar, it will, in fact, be more powerful the US dollar, as opposed to less powerful.”

Mr Scaramucci – who has endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 US presidential election – made the point that Tether, a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar, has more US treasuries in its reserve than the governments of Japans or Germany.

“And so more stablecoin legislation that clear could lead to more reliance on the US dollar,” he added. “And so with all of this, Mr Trump decided that it was a good idea to pivot on crypto, and he caught it at the intersection of a very good time, because it was great frustration in the industry.”

Mr Trump had raised $US80m from crypto enthusiasts, suggesting it’s a political issue.

“So he’s made the calculation that the crypto vote could actually affect the outcome of the US election,” Mr Scaramucci said.

“Mike Novogratz, a friend of mine, who’s the CEO of Galaxy, thinks there’s 85 million US based digital wallets.

“Coinbase says it’s closer to 50 (million), but let me for the purpose of this conversation, let’s say there are 40 million wallets, which is conservative estimate, in the United States, and 5 per cent of those people, 2 million people are single-issue voters.

“Imagine how important that would be in a razor-thin election.”

Mr Scaramucci added that he’s obviously very bullish on crypto currencies because he’s heavily invested there personally.

“The American people want it, the American people have spoken and it is an emerging asset class that I think, obviously I’m very bullish on,” Mr Scaramucci said at the conference.

“And full disclosure, you know, I’ve got probably a third of my asset management company in bitcoin and solana and ethereum.

“And, you know, maybe 55 per cent of my net worth is in the asset class, so I’m obviously very bullish about it, and we will get to the right regulation.

“But I will just say to people, if you’re partisan, if there’s people in a room like Donald Trump or people in a room like Vice-President Harris, we need both sides to come together on this for the sake of the industry and for the long term regulatory stability for the industry.”

Originally published as Crypto won’t suppress US dollar: Anthony Scaramucci