Mark Cuban says Silicon Valley's bet on Trump is a 'bitcoin play'

• Tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen are backing Donald Trump's presidential bid.
• Mark Cuban says Silicon Valley's support for Trump could be a bet on higher bitcoin prices.

Mark Cuban says he has a "contrary opinion" on why Silicon Valley's tech titans have decided to back former President Donald Trump.

"It's a bitcoin play," the "Shark Tank" star wrote in an X post on Wednesday.

Cuban said that the outpouring of support wasn't so much because they saw Trump as a "far stronger proponent of crypto."

"That's nice. But doesn't really impact the price of crypto. It makes it easier to operate a crypto business because of the inevitable, and required, changes at the SEC," Cuban wrote.

"What will drive the price of BTC is lower tax rates and tariffs, which if history is any guide (and it's not always), will be inflationary," he continued.

Trump's campaign has consistently advocated for slashing taxes and imposing tariffs on China and Europe, both of which were his signature economic policies when he was last in office.

But that's not all, according to Cuban. The billionaire said that the uncertainty often associated with Trump's mercurial approach toward foreign policy could help drive bitcoin prices higher.

"Combine that with global uncertainty as to the geopolitical role of the USA, and the impact on the US Dollar as a reserve currency, and you can't align the stars any better for a BTC price acceleration," he said in his post.

Cuban said these factors meant that bitcoin could become a global safe haven, with countries and people looking to purchase the cryptocurrency to protect their savings.

Trump has become a bigger draw for tech billionaires this year, a sharp contrast from his first presidential campaign in 2016 when the venture capitalist Peter Thiel was one of the few backers Trump had in Silicon Valley.

The GOP nominee now has the support of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and venture capitalists like David Sacks, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz.

When asked for comment, Cuban told Business Insider he didn't think higher bitcoin prices were the only factor driving Silicon Valley's support for Trump.

"But it can be the most rewarding and simplest," he said. "It's a whole lot easier to check an app than it is to grow a company in an uncertain environment."

Cuban isn't the only person who thinks a second Trump administration could hurt the US dollar's position as the world's main reserve currency.

In February, Mark Sobel, the US chair of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, said that Trump's tax cuts and tariffs would hurt dollar dominance even though Trump has pledged to maintain it.

"Policy and actions speak louder than slogans," Sobel wrote in his paper earlier this year.

To be sure, Trump's position on crypto has changed vastly since he was president. In 2019, Trump said that he wasn't a fan of cryptocurrencies because their value is "highly volatile and based on thin air."

But the GOP nominee seems to have revised his opinion on crypto. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published Tuesday, Trump said that the US needs to embrace crypto lest China seize and dominate it.

"Now, if I throw it aside, it's going to be picked up in another country, most likely China — they're pretty advanced in that sphere," Trump said. "I don't want to be responsible for allowing another country to take over this sphere."

On Monday, bitcoin prices surged to a two-week high, topping $62,000, after Trump survived an assassination attempt on Saturday.

Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.