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Trump Calls Bitcoin "Based on Thin Air" the Same Day the Fed Chair Called It Digital GoldTrump Calls Bitcoin "Based on Thin Air" the Same Day the Fed Chair Called It Digital Gold

Two of the most quoted official reactions to Bitcoin in its history landed hours apart, from two different branches of government, on the very same evening: July 11, 2019.

Two Verdicts, One AfternoonTwo Verdicts, One Afternoon

That afternoon, Fed Chair Jerome Powell had told the Senate Banking Committee that Bitcoin was "a speculative store of value, like gold." Hours later, President Trump logged onto Twitter with a very different verdict, in the middle of a White House social media summit with online allies.

The TweetstormThe Tweetstorm

Trump's tweetstorm ran three connected parts. First, a direct broadside: "I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity."

Second, he turned to Facebook's proposed Libra currency, the actual reason Congress had been holding hearings that week: "If Facebook and other companies want to become a bank, they must seek a new Banking Charter and become subject to all Banking Regulations, just like other Banks."

He closed by defending the dollar: "We have only one real currency in the USA, and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable. It is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the World." Then he named it directly: the United States Dollar.

The Market ReactionThe Market Reaction

The market reacted immediately. Bitcoin dropped 7.1% within 45 minutes of the tweets going out, part of a broader rout that took the price from above $12,000 toward the $10,000s over the following days, as Trump's comments compounded existing regulatory anxiety around Libra.

Not everyone in the industry took it as bad news. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong reportedly counted it as a win just to have a sitting president tweeting about Bitcoin at all, on the theory that attention, even hostile attention, beat being ignored entirely. CoinDesk later labeled this Trump's "Genesis Post," the first time a presidential statement had directly moved Bitcoin's price, setting a template that would repeat for years.

The ReversalThe Reversal

The reversal that followed is now well known. By 2024, Trump had become an outspoken crypto advocate, and in 2025 he announced a Strategic National Bitcoin Reserve, sending the price up 8.2% in a day, the exact opposite market reaction to this tweet six years earlier.

Same asset, same man, six years apart: "based on thin air" in 2019, a government stockpile in 2025. Powell's gold comparison from that same July afternoon has aged rather better.

Part of an ongoing series on Bitcoin history. This event falls on July 11, 2019.