With less than a week until Election Day in the United States and many voters already casting their ballots, social media platforms are flooded with false information regarding candidates’ policies. Michael Saylor, the executive chair of MicroStrategy, appears to have fallen prey to a misleading post about Donald Trump’s stance on cryptocurrency taxation.
On October 30, Saylor shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) to his over 3.6 million followers, attributing a quote to Trump that claimed cryptocurrency should not be taxed and asserted that “Bitcoin is money.”
Cointelegraph’s investigation revealed that this misleading quote originated from the X account Basedkarbon, which had posted on October 28 that the Republican candidate made these remarks during “a recent interview.”
The erroneous information from the X post was subsequently shared by Good Morning Crypto, which posted the quotes to its 26,000 followers on October 29. Following this, Saylor amplified the misinformation on October 30, prompting several high-profile accounts on X, including Kraken and Bitcoin Archive, to treat the claims as factual.
Basedkarbon commented on Saylor’s post on October 30, stating, “No taxes on crypto is a microcosm example of how information works. The only reason things are true is because someone says something is true. The entire world is just people saying things and making them true.”
Cointelegraph attempted to contact both Saylor and the Trump campaign for comments but did not receive any responses by the time of publication.
In the past week, Trump engaged in two notable interviews with podcaster Joe Rogan and Sean Hannity on Fox News. While he suggested the elimination of federal income tax during Rogan’s podcast, he did not address the topic of digital assets.
Could Election Day make a difference?
Given the structure of the US Electoral College, the outcome of the presidential race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris could hinge on a few thousand votes in key battleground states such as Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Both candidates have indicated their support for the cryptocurrency industry if elected, and some voters may be influenced by which candidate offers more favorable policies.
Grayscale’s chief legal officer, Craig Salm, told Cointelegraph on October 28, “It’s certainly possible that you could have single-issue voters focused on inflation and the economy, viewing crypto as a solution, and that could sway their votes in the elections. Since crypto can act as a hedge against inflation and a store of value, it’s not surprising that many voters are turning to it, given the two primary issues they are facing.”
During his presidency, Trump referred to Bitcoin (BTC) as being based on “thin air” and later labeled the cryptocurrency a “scam.” However, in his 2024 campaign, he has claimed to have revised his views on digital assets by speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 conference, launching a collection of non-fungible tokens, and advocating for BTC miners.