Going down

 

I'm surprised he was allowed to post this on X.

Still a sharp mathematician.  

America for sale

 

Brave new world

 

It can be easier?

 

Donald Trump is expected to sign the GENIUS Act into law Friday, securing his first big win as a self-described "pro-crypto president." The act is the first major piece of cryptocurrency legislation passed in the US.

The House of Representatives voted to pass the GENIUS Act on Thursday, approving the same bill that the Senate passed last month. The law provides a federal framework for stablecoins, a form of cryptocurrency that's considered less volatile than other cryptocurrencies, as each token is backed by the US dollar or other supposedly low-risk assets.

  ars technica

Supposedly. I don't think the dollar is going to be all that promising in the future.

It could become a gateway for many Americans who are otherwise shy about investing in cryptocurrencies, which is what the industry wants. Ahead of Thursday's vote, critics had warned that Republicans were rushing the pro-industry bill without ensuring adequate consumer protections, though, seemingly setting Americans up to embrace stablecoins as legitimate so-called "cash of the blockchain" without actually insuring their investments.

And, the regime has shut down the Consumer Protection Bureau. So, you're on your own. Don't expect honest brokers in the crypto world.

A big concern is that stablecoins will appear as safe investments, legitimized by the law, while supposedly private companies issuing stablecoins could peg their tokens to riskier assets that could tank reserves, cause bank runs, and potentially blindside and financially ruin Americans.

Fun times ahead.

Stablecoin scams could also target naïve stablecoin investors, luring them into making deposits that cannot be withdrawn.

Sounds like a perfect Trump scheme.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)—part of a group of Democrats who had strongly opposed the bill—further warned Thursday that the GENIUS Act prevents lawmakers from owning or promoting stablecoins, but not the president.

Definitely a perfect Trump scheme.

Trump and his family have allegedly made more than a billion dollars through their crypto ventures, and Waters is concerned that the law will make it easier for Trump and other presidents to use the office to grift and possibly even obscure foreign bribes.

Very easy now.

"By passing this bill, Congress will be telling the world that Congress is OK with corruption, OK with foreign companies buying influence," Waters said Thursday, CBS News reported.

Is she implying Congress isn't OK with corruption and foreign influence? Oh, sweet summer child. Come on, Maxine, you've been around a while.

Some lawmakers fear such corruption is already happening.

No!  You don't say!

Some lawmakers fear such corruption is already happening. Senators previously urged the Office of Government Ethics in a letter to investigate why "a crypto firm whose founder needs a pardon" (Binance's Changpeng Zhao, also known as "CZ") "and a foreign government spymaker coveting sensitive US technology" (United Arab Emirates-controlled MGX) "plan to pay the Trump and Witkoff families hundreds of millions of dollars."

The White House continues to insist that Trump has "no conflicts of interest" because "his assets are in a trust managed by his children," Reuters reported.

Kill me now.

Ultimately, Waters and other Democrats failed to amend the bill to prevent presidents from benefiting from the stablecoin framework and promoting their own crypto projects.

Democrats have offered so little resistance in recent decades, they may as well go home.

Markets for various cryptocurrencies spiked Thursday, as the industry anticipates that more people will hold crypto wallets in a world where it's fast, cheap, and easy to move money on the blockchain with stablecoins, as compared to relying on traditional bank services. And any fees associated with stablecoin transfers will likely be paid with other forms of cryptocurrencies, with a token called ether predicted to benefit most since "most stablecoins are issued and transacted on the underlying blockchain Ethereum," Reuters reported.

Unsurprisingly, ether-linked stocks jumped Friday, with the token's value hitting a six-month high. Notably, Bitcoin recently hit a record high; it was valued at above $120,000 as the stablecoin bill moved closer to Trump's desk.

Perhaps we'll be more prepared to accept alien overlords when we've turned loose of anything tangible. I always hoped we'd evolve. I guess this could qualify. Moving into the realm of the mind. Nothing is real. AI and crypto creation. Oh! We could be preparing to meet GOD! We won't need physical senses. This really could be a GENIUS act.

Consumer Reports' senior director monitoring digital marketplaces, Delicia Hand, told Ars that the group plans to work with other consumer advocates and the implementing regulator to try to close any gaps in the stablecoin legislation that would leave Americans vulnerable.

Good luck, Delicia. What a name. Delicia Hand.

Some Democrats supported the GENIUS Act, arguing that some regulation is better than none as cryptocurrency activity increases globally and the technology has the potential to revolutionize the US financial system.

I recall hearing New Age disciples in the late 90s talking about a coming revolution to the US financial system. A new form of economy that would leave the dollar behind. They heard it from their psychic alien partners in other realms. It was also supposed to be an economy that was good for everyone. Damn. Those lizard people have suckered us into the darkness by promising light. "To serve Mankind," indeed.

The only real assurances for stablecoin investors are requirements that all firms must publish monthly reserves backing their tokens, as well as annual statements required from the biggest companies issuing tokens. Those will likely include e-commerce and digital payments giants like Amazon, PayPal, and Shopify, as well as major social media companies.

Meanwhile, Trump seemingly wants to lure more elderly people into investing in crypto, reportedly "working on a presidential order that could allow retirement accounts to be invested in private assets, such as crypto, gold, and private equity," the BBC reported.

Sure! Trump is the ultimate old person scammer. And then he can do away with Social Security.

Waters, a top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, is predicting the worst. She has warned that the law gives "Trump the pen to write the rules that would put more money in his family’s pocket" while causing "consumer harm" and planting "the seeds for the next financial crisis."

Bingo.

But wait. They're not done.

The House of Representatives passed two other crypto bills this week, but those bills now go to the Senate, where they may not have enough support to pass.

The CLARITY Act—which creates a regulatory framework for digital assets and cryptocurrencies to allow for more innovation and competition—is "absolutely the most important thing" the crypto industry has been pushing since spending more than $119 million backing pro-crypto congressional candidates last year, a Coinbase policy official, Kara Calvert, told The New York Times.

Republicans and industry see the CLARITY Act as critical because it strips the Securities and Exchange Commission of power to police cryptocurrencies and digital assets and gives that power instead to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is viewed as friendlier to industry. If it passed, the CLARITY Act would not just make it harder for the SEC to raise lawsuits, but it would also box out any future SEC officials under less crypto-friendly presidents from "bringing any cases for past misconduct," Amanda Fischer, a top SEC official under the Biden administration, told the NYT.

Nothing fishy about that.

But Senators aren't happy with the CLARITY Act and expect to draft their own version of the bill, striving to lay out a crypto market structure that isn't "reviled by consumer protection groups," the NYT reported.

Ease us into economic destruction.  It'll be easier that way.

And the other bill that the House sent to the Senate on Thursday—which would ban the US from creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC) that some conservatives believe would allow for government financial surveillance—faces an uphill battle, in part due to Republicans seemingly downgrading it as a priority.

The anti-CBDC bill will likely be added to a "must-pass" annual defense policy bill facing a vote later this year.

[...]

Terry Haines, founder of the Washington-based analysis firm Pangaea Policy, has forecasted that both the CLARITY Act and the anti-CBDC bills will likely die in the Senate, the BBC reported.

"This is the end of crypto's wins for quite a while—and the only one," Haines suggested. "When the easy part, stablecoin, takes [approximately] four to five years and barely survives industry scandals, it's not much to crow about."

We'll see. 

The thing of it is, most of us don't understand much - if any - of this crypto stuff. So we won't be objecting.

Krypto Korruption King

 

Did your Senator vote to support this?

 

Democrats had sought to amend the bill to prohibit the president, vice president, and senior government officials from directly or indirectly profiting from a stablecoin venture while in office. In recent weeks, Trump has generated outrage by hosting an exclusive dinner with the president for the top buyers of his personal $TRUMP meme coin, raising corruption, ethics and security concerns. His businesses have moved to expand investments in bitcoin while at the same time his administration is working to reduce regulation of the industry and weaken enforcement against certain cryptocurrency crimes.

Republicans balked at that provision, however, shielding Trump and forcing Democrats who supported the legislation, some of whom had received significant financial backing from the crypto industry, to back down.

[...]

[Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.)] 2024 Senate campaign was aided by $10 million from super PACs financed by three large crypto companies, including the Coinbase digital currency exchange. The money financed positive ads in support of the Arizona Democrat. He’s now one of the strongest advocates of the GENIUS Act in the Senate.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who benefited from the super PAC spending millions against former Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) in a primary, is also a leading advocate. So is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who is chairing the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this cycle.

Other Democrats who backed the GENIUS Act said their support for the measure had nothing to do with the crypto industry’s massive 2024 campaign spending.

  HuffPo

Yeah, right.

“I got no help from the crypto industry,” said Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.). “I have had no real engagements with that industry, on any political side, you know, I’m just trying to think through this problem that we have right now, which is that, North Korea right now, and cartels and terrorist groups, they are already exploiting this technology for billions of dollars worth of illicit financing, and I want to stop that. So that’s, you know, that’s something that we’re going to try to do.”

[...]

Kim had less need for similar backup since he was elected to a safe seat in reliably blue New Jersey. But other Democrats who didn’t face reelection also voted for the bill on Wednesday.

[Elizabeth] Warren and other critics of the bill said not only was voting for it tantamount to endorsing Trump’s corruption in office, but that it would weaken financial stability. The bill’s haters and supporters agree it would turbocharge the market for stablecoins by putting stablecoin issuers under the supervision of bank regulators.

[...]

One controversial provision of the bill addresses what would happen if a stablecoin issuer goes bankrupt. Part of the section puts stablecoin holders ahead of other claims in terms of gets paid first, potentially including bank depositors whose deposits are insured by the federal government.

“It’s a way to make sure that U.S. taxpayers bail out any stablecoin shortfalls,” said Warren, an expert on bankruptcy law. “The provision puts people holding stablecoins ahead of depositors in banks. The federal government won’t let those depositors fail, which means the stablecoin guys get theirs first.”

Vote record on the GENIUS Act

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

 

Big Beautiful Bill

Bloomberg: “The CBO says that approximately 7,600,000 people will lose coverage as a result of the bill’s Medicaid cuts. An additional 1,800,000 will lose ACA exchange coverage due to cuts there. Failure to extend subsidy enhancements costs another 4,200,000 their insurance coverage.”

[...]

[Senator Chris] Murphy was also asked about Trump’s new crypto bill: "The problem is the existing version of that bill exempts the president from the ethics requirements. It says it's unethical for me to issue or market a stablecoin, but it's okay for the president to do it. That's not something any Democrat should vote for."

  Meidas Touch

Oh what a surprise

 Money launderers stick together.

Worse than useless

 

How much crypto do those folks own?

Christ.

And, WTF, Cory Booker?

So was that 25-hour speech a mere stunt for a 2028 presidential run?  We thought it meant he was coming out fighting. 

Shame on you, Adam Schiff.  Is this that comms strategy you're trying to preserve?

Voting tomorrow on crypto

Dems were put off recently by phone calls and emails.  The danger is back.

The grift and graft are out for all to see

 

GD Culture Group, which is traded on the Nasdaq, said it would spend $300 million on a stockpile of Bitcoin and $TRUMP, using proceeds from a stock sale to an unnamed entity in the British Virgin Islands, a popular tax haven.

[...]

GD Culture Group became the latest business with foreign ties to seize on Mr. Trump’s crypto venture, which channels profits directly to the Trump family and has generated conflicts of interest that have alarmed ethics experts.

[...]

The purchase would create clear ethical conflicts, enriching Mr. Trump’s family at the same time that the president tries to reach a deal that would allow TikTok to keep operating in the United States rather than face a congressionally approved ban.

The announcement also shows how investors around the world, including some that have virtually no public footprint, have latched on to the president’s crypto ventures to boost their own business prospects.

  NYT

"Democrats cave" turns out to have been a false alarm

Calls went out on social media to phone and write Senators insisting they vote "no" on the crypto bill after it was reported they were about to rubber stamp it.

Josh Hawley?  I'm shocked.

What, Politico?  You don't have space to name the third Republican?

Actually, they haven't voted "no" on the bill.  Only on whether the bill could come to a vote.

The vote is a major loss for Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other pro-crypto Republicans.

[...]

Thune voted against the bill and entered a motion to reconsider, which will allow him to bring it back up on the floor.

  Politico

So Thune was the third no. Maybe that's the same reason Josh Hawley voted no. Pretty sure Rand Paul just didn't like it for some reason.

“We need time,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who voted for a previous version of the bill in committee and helped lead negotiations for Democrats this week. “We’re not shutting down. We don’t want to shut this down to the point where we are ending all this work we have put into it. We want to bring this economy and this economy and this innovation to the United States.”

Yeah, last I saw, Gallego was voting yes and touting the bill as a great compromise.

Pro-crypto Democrats said they are still committed to striking a deal that could advance.

“While we’ve made meaningful progress on the GENIUS Act, the work is not yet complete, and I simply cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to vote for this legislation when the text isn’t yet finished,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), a key Democratic holdout who was helping lead negotiations this week, said in a statement. “I remain fully committed to getting this right. I plan to continue working with my colleagues to strengthen this legislation and move it forward in a way that promotes innovation while protecting the interests of the American people.”

Yeah, well, tighten it up so that Trump can't line his pockets with it.

BTW, it's called the GENIUS act.  Genius.

Wait a minute

 Why does this guy have to do time and Trump doesn't?

Maybe Pope Leo could retweet that.

"Democrats cave"

 A familiar and dispiriting headline.

UPDATE 05:21 pm:   Calls went out to write and phone Senators to vote no.  Looks like they heard.

The rubes lose again

 

About 764,000 wallets that purchased President Donald Trump’s $TRUMP meme coin have lost money on the investment, according to fresh data shared with CNBC by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

Most of the wallets that lost money held smaller amounts of the token, according to the firm’s on-chain analysis.

[...]

Chainalysis said that while around 2 million wallets have bought into the token, 58 wallets made more than $10 million apiece, totaling roughly $1.1 billion in gains.

[...]

Interest in the coin spiked more than 50% after the project’s website promised the top 220 holders a seat at a black-tie-optional dinner with the president.

The $TRUMP event, set for May 22 at the president’s Trump National Golf Club, Washington, D.C., includes a reception for the 25 wallets with the largest coin balance, along with a White House tour.

  NBC

Fifty-eight winners versus 764,000 losers. Great odds, rubes.

Not even all 50 of the "winners" get the prize.

In total, 100,000 new wallets have purchased $TRUMP since April 15, Chainalysis said, extending the post-announcement surge despite ongoing volatility in the broader crypto market.

Sad!

Lawmakers are now formally investigating whether the $TRUMP meme coin — and a related crypto venture called World Liberty Financial, which sends 75% of revenue to the Trump family — constitute a direct conflict of interest for the president.

[...]

At the center of the controversy is the dinner competition for top token holders, promotional posts from the president himself, and ties to foreign investors including a state-backed Emirati fund and crypto mogul Justin Sun.

You have to investigate that? It's obviously a conflict.

Since January, more than $324 million in trading fees have been routed to wallets tied to the project’s creators, according to Chainalysis. The token’s code automatically directs a cut of each transaction to these addresses, allowing the team to profit from ongoing activity.

[...]

Launched in January ahead of Trump’s second inauguration, the token’s value initially soared to $15 billion after a series of promotional posts from the president on Truth Social and X. It lost most of that value within days.

Only 20% of the token’s total supply is currently in circulation. The remaining 80% — reportedly controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliated entities — is locked under a three-year vesting schedule. Public disclosures say insiders have agreed not to sell their allocations for another few months.

And why oh why would they want to sell?

Anyway, Trump gets a cut of every sale. Doesn't have to do a thing. What a racket.

Trump 2.0 - Cryptocorruption

Mr. Trump’s return to the White House has opened lucrative new pathways for him to cash in on his power, whether through his social media company or new overseas real estate deals. But none of the Trump family’s other business endeavors pose conflicts of interest that compare to those that have emerged since the birth of World Liberty.

The firm, largely owned by a Trump family corporate entity, has erased centuries-old presidential norms, eviscerating the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in a manner without precedent in modern American history.

Mr. Trump is now not only a major crypto dealer; he is also the industry’s top policy maker. So far in his second term, Mr. Trump has leveraged his presidential powers in ways that have benefited the industry — and in some cases his own company — even though he had spent years deriding crypto as a haven for drug dealers and scammers.

He has filled his administration with sympathizers to the crypto cause, including by appointing a former adviser to industry players as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, the Justice Department recently disbanded a crypto crimes task force, continuing a broader unwinding of Biden-era scrutiny of the industry.

[...]

World Liberty has sold its cryptocurrency to investors abroad, including in Israel and Hong Kong, according to interviews and data obtained by The Times, establishing a new avenue for foreign businesses to try to curry favor with Mr. Trump.

Several investors in World Liberty’s coin managed firms that the federal government accused of wrongdoing. They include an executive whose fraud case was suspended after he invested millions of dollars in World Liberty.

[...]

World Liberty proposed swapping cryptocurrencies with at least five start-ups, and often used the Trump name to solicit steep payments as part of the deals. Even in an industry with a disreputable history, the deals raised alarm among veteran executives.

“It’s a black spot on our industry,” said Andre Cronje, a founder of SonicLabs, a crypto firm that turned down World Liberty’s pitch.

  NYT

Everything Trump touches becomes a black spot.

“It’s one of the more successful things we’ve ever done,” Eric Trump, the president’s son who runs the family business, said in an interview this month at the Trump Doral golf course in Florida.

One could say the ONLY successful thing they've done.

He and his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., are actively involved in World Liberty, though they rely on three partners to oversee the daily operations. Two of them, Mr. Folkman and Chase Herro, have a mixed track record in crypto. The other is Zach Witkoff, the son of Mr. Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who is also a World Liberty founder.

In recent days, Zach Witkoff, Mr. Folkman and Mr. Herro were in Pakistan meeting with the country’s prime minister, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, and other top government officials to discuss World Liberty. The trip, complete with limousines, a dance performance and police escorts, seamlessly blended the president’s business interests with the trappings of a state visit. (Mr. Wachsman said no U.S. government officials were involved in the meetings.)

[...]

On the livestream introducing World Liberty, Donald Trump Jr. hailed the men as first-class financial minds.

“You could put them in a boardroom at Goldman Sachs, and they’re going to smoke the people in the room,” he said.

[...]

In 2022, Mr. Herro urged a roomful of crypto enthusiasts to invest in the currency TerraUSD, calling it “one of the coolest assets in history.” The coin imploded a month later, erasing billions of dollars in wealth. Mr. Herro’s most recent venture with Mr. Folkman was a crypto platform called Dough Finance, which was hacked in July, leading to the theft of $2 million.

[...]

In October, Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman got to work on the company’s first initiative — selling a new cryptocurrency, which it called $WLFI, with the goal of $300 million in sales.

These coins would be different from $TRUMP — the so-called memecoin that spiked in January after Mr. Trump marketed it to his followers before it abruptly crashed.

A memecoin is a type of cryptocurrency based on an online joke or celebrity mascot. It has no practical function other than speculation. After $TRUMP’s initial surge, its price plummeted, costing investors a cumulative $2 billion.

World Liberty, at least according to its marketing pitch, eventually plans to operate as a new type of internet bank that would allow customers to borrow and lend money in various digital currencies.

[...]

[Eric and Don Jr] had become enthusiastic crypto proponents after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol effectively exiled the family business from the mainstream financial system.

“We built and sold and held real estate forever. And for a long period of time, I had access to everyone in the world,” Donald Trump Jr. explained in a live video appearance at a crypto conference in Washington last month. “All of a sudden that became really difficult. And I sort of realized very quickly just how much discrimination there is in the ordinary financial markets.”

[...]

The change of heart also coincided with an influx of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the crypto industry into the Trump re-election effort. Under the Biden administration, the industry had faced nearly 100 enforcement actions by the S.E.C., and crypto executives wanted a leader to champion their interests in Washington.

During his campaign stumps, Mr. Trump’s qualms about crypto appeared to vanish. At a Bitcoin conference in July, he vowed to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet.”

[...]

Federal law prevents foreigners from donating to presidential campaigns or inaugural funds, but World Liberty’s coin sale offered a new, legal way to back Mr. Trump.

“The main reason for purchasing such a token was to support Trump’s inauguration, as he was the first crypto-friendly president of the United States.”

[...]

President Trump has noted that conflict of interest laws do not apply to him, and that he has broad immunity for official actions he takes as president.

Thank you, SCOTUS.

There's a whole lot more in this article about the sleaze the Trumps are dealing in around cryptocurrency. Here's a bit concerning the future of their enterprise...

Jordi Alexander, a crypto executive who helped World Liberty with its plans to launch its stablecoin, said in an interview that the company had already secured commitments of at least $1 billion from investors to buy the stablecoin once it hits the market.

The new venture will only compound World Liberty’s ethical conflicts. The company plans to offer USD1 on a platform developed by Binance, a giant exchange that settled criminal charges with the Justice Department in 2023. This week, Mr. Witkoff, Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman met with Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and former chief executive, in Abu Dhabi.

Mr. Zhao, who served four months in federal prison for money-laundering violations, has been seeking a pardon from the Trump administration.

[...]

The overlap between Mr. Trump’s policy pronouncements and his business interests have alarmed congressional Democrats, who moved recently to amend the pending stablecoin legislation to bar the Trump family from issuing one.

The amendment failed, and none of the concerns about World Liberty have disrupted its momentum.

The law is for the little people

 Remember, HE says what the law is.

UPDATE 04/25/2025:

Alarm bells

The real world realities being ushered in by President Donald Trump’s economic policies triggered alarm bells for former Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC), who not only sounded off on their effects on the American public – but also on the GOP’s chances in 2026 midterm elections.

The warnings from the former South Carolina governor came Thursday during an appearance on CNN's “Erin Burnett OutFront” amid news that the uncertainty over Trump’s teetering tariff threats sent the stock markets into a nosedive.

[...]

“I think the administration is playing with real fire here,” Sanford said before diving into the effects the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 had during the Great Depression, which he added, “imploded world trade.”

“If you set off the match that lights a trade war again, there will be hell to pay politically and there will be real consequences in people's lives,” he told viewers.

[...]

“Which I think could really, I mean, you talk about something that would bite the Republican party in the midterms,” Sanford said. “Oh my goodness.”

  MSN

Trump will not give two rat's asses about imploding anything or consequences in other people's lives. Nor about Republicans' political future.

Sanford also laid into the ripple effect Trump’s policies are already having on small business. But, “more worrisome,” according to the former South Carolina lawmaker, “is the inflation component.”

[...]

The comments came hours after Trump told reporters that he's "not even looking at the market, because long term the United States will be very strong with what is happening here.”

Fucking shitheel. He was ALWAYS looking at the market in Trump 1.0. He's counting on cryptocurrency and Putin to take care of him. The rest of the world means nothing to him.

In Trump 1.0, he always pointed to the stock market to indicate his success. Suddenly, the stock market means nothing, and his minions trail along.

As with many of Trump’s big orange dreams, it’s not exactly clear what the crypto reserve will entail or how it will work. But the brilliance of the half-baked idea is that Trump and his cronies can make bank just by talking about it. The president can use his bully pulpit to manipulate markets. And who’s going to stop him?

[...]

In theory, cryptocurrencies do not rely on a central government authority. Proponents say they are useful for quick or anonymous transactions. Critics point out that cryptocurrency seems designed for hiding illegal transactions and/or creating what are essentially Ponzi investment schemes.

Because of the downsides, President Biden created moderate guidelines to try to regulate some of the worst excesses of the industry, which made him an enemy of hardcore crypto boosters. But Trump in his first term expressed even deeper skepticism about cryptocurrencies, saying they are based on “thin air.”

  Public Notice

Which works beautifully for him now.

During the 2024 election, though, crypto investors spent tens of millions on Republican campaigns. Trump, who never saw a quid pro quo he didn’t love, changed his tune, embracing crypto-friendly policies. After his victory, he followed through by appointing venture capitalist and Elon Musk crony David Sacks as a White House crypto czar.

Another reason Trump flip-flopped on crypto is that his family figured out how to cash in. Following the election, Trump squandered some of the goodwill he had built up with the crypto industry when he and his wife Melania launched memecoins — essentially valueless crypto confidence games — that both surged in value, making the Trumps billions (but undermining the credibility of crypto in the process). That came after his two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr, launched their own crypto company during the campaign called World Liberty Financial. Boosting crypto as president, then, allows Trump and his family to profit directly from his public office.

But, Hunter Biden!

Trump announced his thank you to the industry last Sunday, when he declared that he would create a “Crypto Strategic Reserve” in order to make the US “the Crypto Capital of the World.” He of course claimed the move is part of “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

But the actual point of the crypto reserve, much less the details, are sketchy at best. Proponents argue crypto is a store of value, like gold, and could help damp inflation. But the major cryptocurrencies tend to rise and fall in value based on broader macroeconomic sentiment. And since crypto is volatile and, unlike gold, has no intrinsic value, it’s hard to credit its usefulness as a currency stabilizer.

In any case, Trump’s announcement didn’t say anything about using the reserve to hedge against inflation. Instead, he presented the scheme as if the goal of the reserve was just to boost the domestic crypto industry against foreign competitors. It’s a kind of farm subsidy, but for billionaires making digital magic beans instead of food.

[...]

The real genius of the crypto reserve, though, is that Trump doesn’t need to figure out how it works to enrich his buddies. All he has to do is tip off his friends, then tout certain coins on Truth Social.

[...]

Obviously, if someone had been tipped off about Trump’s posts beforehand, they could have made millions, or even billions. And sure enough, a few hours before Trump announced the reserve, someone purchased $200 million in Ethereum and Bitcoin and made a killing. Was it a White House insider? Was it someone connected to the Trump family? How can we be sure it wasn’t?

I think we can be sure it was.

On the scale of current horrors, a few billion in straightforward graft seems relatively benign compared to Republican plans to gut Social Security and Medicaid. Or to the black box concentration camps Trump set up in Guantanamo. Or to Trump’s despicable betrayal of Ukraine.

The ugly bit about the reserve, though, is less the corruption itself than the bland sense of impunity behind it.

Trump has never been shy about grifting. He set up a fake real estate university to grift students in the 2000s. More recently, he’s used his MAGA cult leader status to sell true believers everything from NFTs to Bibles to shoes.

Even by those standards, though, the “Crypto Reserve” seems like a gratuitous grotesque swindle, as Trump uses his power to manipulate markets and hand out huge paydays to whoever happens to be in the room while he’s composing his Truth Social declarations.

The boondoggle is so obvious, and so clumsy, it barely even feels like a scam. Instead, it functions more as an open declaration of Trump’s contempt for the public, his office, and for the rule of law. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in an authoritarian kleptocracy, this is it.

UPDATE 04:06 pm:

How many reversals is that now?

America on the road to ruin

 Here we go.

UPDATE 03/03/2025: