Trump Almost Banned Bitcoin in 2020—Until Steve Mnuchin Stopped Him, Says Block Exec

Donald Trump wanted to ban Bitcoin during his presidency, but former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin stopped him, an executive at Block Inc. claims.

“Trump tried to ban Bitcoin in 2020, until Steve Mnuchin and a group of people in the administration slow-walked his wishes, to preserve American competitiveness and innovation,” Mike Brock, part of the core leadership team at financial technology company Block, posted on Twitter. “I was invited to the meeting. And yes, I’m violating the confidence of those conversations.”

“Are you suggesting people can’t change their minds?” one Twitter user replied. “Trump doesn’t believe in anything but himself,” Brock replied.

In a follow-up tweet, Brock added that Trump doesn't care about Bitcoin, arguing that the Presidential hopeful has "sized up a bunch of people who he saw as an easy fundraising and constituency win for him." He added that should Trump win the upcoming election, he would " immediately begin the process of doing to them, what he’s done to every other constituency he’s courted: leaving them out to dry."

Brock has worked at Block Inc. (formerly Square) since 2013, becoming the strategic development lead working on payment service Cash App in 2017 until 2021. During those four years, he helped helped with regulatory and legal work as well. After that, he became the lead and chief executive officer at Block’s latest business unit TBD—a decentralized finance company.

Brock did not immediately reply to Decrypt’s request for comment on his claim about Trump. There was also no immediate response from the U.S. Treasury Department or Mnuchin to confirm confirmation that Brock attended a meeting with White House officials in 2020.

The Block Inc. executive has so far donated $22,250 to political action committees that back President Joe Biden or Democrats. The most recent was a $2,000 donation last month to the Biden Victory Fund. But for what it’s worth, he also made a $2,752.54 donation to the conservative-backing WinRed and which then earmarked the money for the Chris Christie for President, Inc. Christie launched his campaign last June, but withdrew in January.

The claims from Brock come amid industry-wide political discourse after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned voters about supporting “pro-crypto” candidates that may be making superficial promises.

“If you see a politician being crypto-friendly, one thing you can do is look up their views on crypto itself five years ago,” the blog post said. “Crypto-friendly now does not mean crypto-friendly five years from now.”

While he was in office from 2017 through the beginning of 2021, Trump tweeted that he is “not a fan” of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. He also said they’re “not money.” Later, once he left office, he doubled down and said that “Bitcoin just seems like a scam, while also bolstering previous claims that the dollar should be the only currency used in the U.S..

But coming into the current presidential race, Trump’s stance on crypto softened and quickly reversed.

“Crypto is moving out of the U.S. because of hostility towards crypto,” Trump said, at an NFT event at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “We’ll stop it because I don’t want that—if we’re going to embrace it, we have to let them be here.”

More recently, in a draft party platform the Republican Party outlined plans to end the “un-American” crypto crackdown. That’s lead many in the industry to see Trump as the pro-crypto candidate with some voters saying they’ll choose Trump over Biden because of his crypto stance.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.