Former US President Donald Trump has called cryptocurrency Bitcoin as a “scam”. In an interview to Fox Business Network on Monday, Trump said, “Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam. 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.”
The largest digital currency plunged almost six per cent on Asian trading and was at $32,770, as of 11am in Hong Kong (around 8.30am IST) on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.
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The price of Bitcoin is witnessing a downward trend since early May and has not recovered yet. During the initial months of the year, the digital token had climbed to as high as $60,000.
The current drop in Bitcoin rate is credited to electric car manufacturer Tesla’s U-turn from its earlier announcement of allowing the currency as payment. The company has backtracked from the commitment and said it would no longer accept the token.
Tesla owner Elon Musk’s tweets around its energy consumption and non-sustainable mining procedure have also caused havoc in the crypto market.
However, Trump’s comment disregarding Bitcoin comes in the backdrop of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele’s decision to make the country the first in the world to formally adopt the digital currency as legal tender, which triggered concerns from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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Contradicting Trump’s statement, Neil Wilson, chief market analyst for Markets.com said that Bitcoin is definitely not a currency and neither a threat to dollar, reported BBC.
He said Bitcoin is more like an investment, a stock or bond, according to a report. “The means by which America exerts influence over the world is predominantly by the dollar, and it’s not going to give that up, so I don’t see Bitcoin as a threat whatsoever,” BBC quoted him as saying.
