Is Trump building a crypto economy?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump once dismissed cryptocurrencies as a scam. But since returning to office, his view of them has shifted dramatically.
In July, President Trump signed new legislation aimed at integrating crypto into the financial mainstream. Members of the Trump family have launched their own ventures, generating significant profits and boosting the visibility of digital currencies in American politics.
Supporters say this could reassert the dominance of the US dollar in a changing global economy, while critics warn of economic volatility and regulatory gaps. How did crypto go from fringe to front-and-centre in Trump’s economic vision?
This week on The Inquiry, we’re asking: Is Trump building a crypto economy?
Contributors: Molly White, writer for the Citation Needed Newsletter in the US Francine McKenna, Lecturer at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, US Will Grant, BBC's Mexico, Central America and Caribbean correspondent Gillian Tett, Provost of King's College, Cambridge, UK
Presenter: Tanya Beckett Producers: Ben Henderson and Matt Toulson Researcher: Evie Yabsley Editor: Tom Bigwood Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards Production Management Assistant: Liam Morrey
(Photo: President Donald Trump displays the GENIUS Act on 18 July 2025. Credit: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. Welcome to the inquiry from the BBC World Service with me, |
| 0:09.9 | Tanya Beckett. One question, four expert witnesses and an answer. President Donald Trump |
| 0:20.6 | has set about embracing the world of cryptocurrencies. |
| 0:24.8 | He signed a new act aiming at bringing the crypto world into the established financial fold. |
| 0:31.1 | The Trump family has even launched a handful of new crypto projects and made substantial amounts of money in the process. |
| 0:39.6 | But this bid to put America at the centre of crypto innovation and extend the reach of the dollar |
| 0:45.0 | comes with a set of new risks. |
| 0:48.6 | This week on the inquiry, we're asking, is Trump building a crypto economy? |
| 0:57.2 | Part 1, the birth of Bitcoin. |
| 1:03.4 | There was this sort of anti-establishment belief set behind early cryptocurrency enthusiasts |
| 1:10.8 | who believed that it would be better if there |
| 1:13.4 | wasn't this individual control or singular corporations controlling financial technology. |
| 1:22.3 | We begin our story some 15 years ago, when much of the world was caught in the shock of the global |
| 1:29.8 | financial crisis. Meltdown on the markets as Wall Street is left reeling from some of the biggest |
| 1:36.1 | blows in its history. Whilst world leaders scrambled to hold the financial system together, |
| 1:42.8 | elsewhere in the tech-savvy corner of society, |
| 1:46.2 | a new strand of thinking had emerged. |
| 1:49.3 | And that was that for savers, they needed to be an alternative to trusting banks with our money. |
| 1:55.8 | Molly White is a writer for the citation-needed newsletter, |
| 2:00.4 | which claims to offer critical coverage of |
| 2:03.2 | the crypto industry based in the United States. |
| 2:07.4 | Cryptocurrencies originated in 2009 with the origin of Bitcoin, which was a digital |
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