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Trump spouts false economic claims ahead of crypto summit

The White House held its first-ever “crypto summit” on Friday, gathering top execs from digital asset firms to chat about how the Trump administration plans to undo the Biden administration’s regulatory crackdown on crypto.

But the attendees reportedly left feeling deflated. Here’s where prices stand over the past 24 hours:

CRYPTOCURRENCYPRICEGAINS +/-Bitcoin (BTC) $86,052-0.8%Ethereum (ETH) $2,182+1.5%Solana (SOL) $136-4.3%XRP (XRP) $2.33-2.5%Cardano (ADA) $0.811-0.9%Dogecoin (DOGE) $0.1925-3.5%

The event came three days after Trump’s first address to Congress since returning to office, in which he spouted several statements, including one about the economy that doesn’t quite align with the facts.

“As you know, we inherited an economic disaster and an inflation crisis from the previous administration,” Trump stated.

Here are the facts

Gross Domestic Product: Under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, real GDP growth averaged around 3.4% over the first three years, including a 2.5% growth in 2023. Compare that to Trump’s first term: Not counting the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-, the economy experienced an average annual real GDP growth of approximately 2.5%. By 2020, the pandemic led to a significant contraction and resulted in an overall average annual growth rate of about 1.6% for Trump’s term.

Inflation: Trump has claimed that the U.S. has faced “the worst inflation we’ve ever had.” However, that’s inaccurate – inflation last exceeded 9% in 1981, and has been much higher at various points throughout U.S. history. Indeed, prices surged considerably during the initial two years of Biden’s presidency, reaching a high of 9.1% in June 2022. By December 2024, the annual inflation rate was 2.9%.