Donald Trump Is a Fan of NFT Art

What motivated Donald Trump to launch his NFT collection, which has so far earned him nearly $10 million?

Donald Trump has explained what led him to the idea of creating his own NFT collection. The former US president is a fan of NFT art and he found the pictures of his portrait "pretty cute."

Trump's NFT collection launched in early December 2022 on Polygon. People initially criticized the $99 NFTs after they launched, with many Trump supporters saying they wouldn't buy them, while others found watermarks on the images that indicated some of the photos were stolen.

"I liked the art," Trump said. "I look at the pictures and I'm like, 'that's pretty nice, that could sell.' It was like a record. It was unbelievable."

The main attraction of the NFT collection was the "amazing art from [Trump's] life and career." The individual cards depict Trump as an astronaut, a cowboy and a superhero, as well as several other poses and costumes.

When asked why he decided to launch NFTs when the entire cryptocurrency market had dropped, Trump replied that he "didn't see it as an investment" but reiterated that he "thought they were cute."  Buyers were offered perks like meeting or dining with Trump and the NFT collection sold out in a single day, but public interest quickly waned, driving the price of the images down.

NFT tokens are associated with digital (and sometimes physical) assets like art or music. Last year, this modern art form experienced a huge boom, but as the cryptocurrency market entered the current bear market, interest in these assets fell away.

According to CryptoSlam, Trump's collection has brought in a total of $9.6 million in secondary sales so far.

Trump, who served as US president from 2017-2021, announced in November that he would run again in 2024.

This time last year, his wife Melania Trump released an NFT on the Solana network. Trump responded a few days later, praising his wife’s idea but adding that crypto is "a very dangerous thing."