CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten on Wednesday broke down why President Donald Trump has done a 180 on cryptocurrency after calling the digital currency “not money” and “based on thin air” in his first term in the White House.
“Donald Trump is one of the people who has been responsible for bringing crypto into the mainstream, because it’s been good for him politically, but it has also been quite good for him and his family financially,” Enten said.
His takes comes after the president hosted a dinner for top investors of his $TRUMP meme coin — a digital currency launched just days before his inauguration — at one of his golf courses last week.
On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance praised the crypto industry in a keynote address at a bitcoin conference in Las Vegas — an event that included remarks from the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, as well.
The parent company of Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform also announced this week that it looks to raise about $2.5 billion to buy bitcoin all while the Trump family’s growing praise of the digital currency has fueled ethics concerns among Democrats as well as some Republicans.
Enten pointed to a polling trend showing that 55% of Americans believe crypto should be legal in 2025 compared to 38% of those who believed that in 2014.
“The American public has shifted tremendously on it,” Enten said.
He went on to stress that Trump “loves people who are loyal to him” before turning to a polling analysis showing how the president fared notably better with crypto owners in the 2024 election compared with his performance in 2020.
“So, part of Donald Trump getting into bed with crypto owners is that they like Donald Trump and therefore Donald Trump loves crypto owners,” Enten said.
He proceeded to flag an April estimate by Bloomberg showing the Trump family’s crypto gains approaching nearly $1 billion.
“The bottom line is the Trump family saw an opportunity to go into crypto, to make a lot of money from crypto, and that is, in fact, exactly what they have done,” he said.