Trump Pump? Bitcoin Price Buoyant After US President Says He’s 'Not a Fan'

Bitcoin (BTC) was starting to reverse upwards July 12 as a critical tweet from United States president, Donald Trump, became a hot talking point across cryptocurrency.

Market visualization courtesy of Coin360

Data from Coin360 showed BTC/USD 0.9% up over the past 24 hours after a significant downturn earlier on Thursday. 

At press time, the pair traded around $11,600, having bounced off support at just above $11,000. 

Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360

Volatility has lessened over the past nine hours, despite the first-ever public comments from Trump on crypto, which turned out to be highly negative. 

“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,” he tweeted earlier.

“Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity,” he added.

Similarly dismissive of Facebook’s Libra digital currency protocol, Trump’s Bitcoin bashing nonetheless failed to leave any impression on markets, with BTC/USD showing no change in behavior after the tweets went live. 

“Boring market, no wonder everyone is talking Trump,” trader and investor Josh Rager summarized in a new market commentary.

The phenomenon underscores Bitcoin’s newfound resilience to external criticism, which has only increased in 2019 as markets shake off the opinions of naysayers. 

Amongst investors, however, almost all the attention was on Trump, many in fact thanking him for drawing attention to the industry and proving it did not need his support.

“Well done (Donald Trump) for bringing more awareness to (Bitcoin),” one popular response read, sharing data from Google Trends.

Others tried to convince Trump to reevaluate, including Tron CEO, Justin Sun, who invited him to his existing charity dinner showdown with fellow Bitcoin bear Warren Buffett.

Among altcoins, meanwhile, a more diversified picture was beginning to present. 

Ether (ETH) showed little change in its generally lackluster trend dropping another 1% over the past 24 hours to $270.

Ether 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360

Others, however, showed gains. Binance Coin (BNB), the in-house token of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, shot up 6.3% in the same period, while EOS (EOS) achieved 2.3% and Litecoin (LTC) 1.3%.

At the same time, Bitcoin SV (BSV), the off-shoot of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), dropped despite the pressure on Bitcoin itself. Previously, the token had managed to capitalize on downward Bitcoin price movements, a trait which recently evaporated.