Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has revealed that he has purchased two Bitcoins (BTC) for each of his seven children.
During a Twitter Spaces conversation on Wednesday with Scott Melker, the host of The Wolf of All Street podcast, Kennedy revealed that he purchased the tokens in response to criticism he faced for promoting a “volatile commodity” without having any personal stake in it.
“Right after that Bitcoin conference I got a big check and I said, okay, you know, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is and so I bought two Bitcoin for every one of my seven children,” he said.
Kennedy has six biological children, consisting of four sons and two daughters, ranging in age from 22 to 38. It is presumed that the seventh child is from Kennedy’s current marriage to actress Cheryl Hines.
Kennedy popularly endorsed Bitcoin during the Miami Bitcoin Conference held from May 18 to May 20 this year.
He referred to the cryptocurrency as an “exercise in democracy” during his well-received keynote speech at the event, calling Bitcoin a “bulwark” against “government and corporate expansion and intrusion” at the time.
“As president, I will make sure that your right to hold and use Bitcoin is inviolable.”
Bitcoin’s price was approximately $27,000 in the days following the conference.
However, with the current value hovering around $29,500, the 14 bitcoin Kennedy purchased for his children are now worth almost $414,000.
Financial Documents Show Kennedy is a Bitcoin Holder
While this is the first time Kennedy has openly admitted to owning cryptocurrency, a financial disclosure released earlier this month showed that the presidential candidate was a Bitcoin holder.
As reported, the filing showed Kennedy had between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of Bitcoin held in a brokerage account by the end of June.
The revelation came as Kennedy had explicitly said during a conference in May that he was not involved in Bitcoin investment.
“I am not an investor and I am not here to give investment advice,” he said at the time.
In response to the report, Kennedy’s campaign manager, former Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich, claimed that the Bitcoin purchase was made after the speech in Miami.
Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, raised concerns that there could be a conflict of interest if Kennedy promoted Bitcoin on his campaign trail while his family held the cryptocurrency.
Nevertheless, Kennedy has continued to publicly support Bitcoin since the conference in Miami.
“Bitcoin is not only a bulwark against totalitarianism and the manipulation of our money supply, it points the way toward a future in which government institutions are more transparent and more democratic,” he said in a June tweet.
