Bitcoin prices plummeted after former President Donald Trump suggested the cryptocurrency could be used to pay off the country’s $35 trillion national debt.
The cryptocurrency market has been falling in recent days amid global uncertainty that has led investors to sell risky assets. The global turmoil in stock markets on Monday came amid fears of a possible U.S. recession.
Speaking on Fox Business on Friday, Trump said: “Who knows? Maybe we’ll pay off our $35 trillion, give them a little crypto check, right?”
“We’ll give them some Bitcoin and make our $35 trillion disappear,” he said.
Bitcoin lost 12 percent of its value in the last 24 hours, while ether lost 21 percent in the same time period.
Bitcoin’s price has been falling since Friday and briefly dropped below $50,000 on Monday, the first time it has fallen below those levels since February.
According to crypto news site CoinTelegraph, the cryptocurrency market lost nearly $500 billion in value in a three-day period.
Trump has been trying to position himself as pro-crypto in recent weeks.
Speaking at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 27, the Republican presidential candidate outlined plans to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” if he is elected for a second term.
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He also talked about the US creating a “strategic national bitcoin reserve,” an idea that has long been hoped for in the crypto community and is currently being championed by Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis.
“If elected, I am announcing that the policy of my administration will be to hold 100 percent of all Bitcoin that the United States government now holds or acquires in the future, we will hold 100 percent,” Trump said.
“I hope you do well, please. This will serve as the core of the strategic national bitcoin stockpile.”
Monday’s dramatic decline showed that this trend has largely reversed.
Trump’s stance on cryptocurrencies has changed dramatically over the years. In 2019, he described the market as “very volatile and very much a fluke” and said he was “not a fan.”
Newsweek I reached out to the Trump campaign via email outside of normal business hours for comment.
The sell-off in the cryptocurrency market occurred along with the decline in stocks in the Asia-Pacific markets.
The stock market decline was partly due to weak U.S. employment data released on Friday, weak earnings reports from major technology companies last week and rising tensions in the Middle East.