the TRUMP$ Memecoin - Molly White

The naked grift is truly breathtaking in its scope and scale. As the administration returns to power, there will be no limits placed on the power of the wealthy to extract from the plebes.

Donald Trump minting gold coins

I am not a fan of the whole Cryptocurrency thing. In fact, when I first heard of it in 2009, I thought it was the stupidest fucking thing I ever heard.

But regardless of my thoughts, a lot of people have gone bananas for it in all its guises.

The Friday night before Trump was sworn in, there was a late night drop of the new TRUMP$ coin, and over the next 48 hours, Trump’s net-worth increased by something like $50B (yeah, that is BILLION) due to his holdings of this “shitcoin”, while fans and savvy investors piled in.

On Friday, JVL at The Bulwark (link - sadly paywalled) talks about how he stumbled on it before the mania set in last Saturday morning and how he made a few bucks from the dumbest people on the planet:

I woke up in the small hours Saturday morning. Couldn’t sleep. Checked the news and saw that Trump had launched his own memecoin. I do not usually dabble in crypto, but I poked around the $TRUMP website to see how hard it would be for, say, a working-class, middle-aged guy in rural America to figure out how to purchase the token. The answer was: very easy. Anyone with a fifth-grade education and a debit card can buy $TRUMP coins in about five minutes.

I looked at the clock. In few hours the $TRUMP memecoin would be all over Fox & Friends—at which point a million slow-witted cultists would be alerted to this fabulous new investment vehicle. So I threw some money into the coin and waited. A few hours later this meaningless, valueless token took off.

When the initial hype cycle slowed, I sold my holdings. And for the first time in my life, I understood the guys who work in boiler rooms: Transferring wealth from idiots to your own pocket is intoxicating.

Anyway, I no longer have a position in $TRUMP coin, but I do enjoy listening to the very fine people who are stuck with these things.

He followed that with some choice memes from Reddit:

Go head over there to watch the rubes whine into the wind about their misfortune.

But I am really hear to tout Molly White’s outstanding reporting¹ on this. She leads off with how the elite of the Crypto Bros were clinking glasses at a pre-inauguration ball, toasting to how lucky they were that Trump was going to pretty much enable their criming² for the next 4 years.

As some of Trump’s most devoted supporters from the crypto world were clinking champagne flutes at the industry-funded black-tie “Crypto Ball”, Trump was elsewhere, launching his own $TRUMP memecoin.^b There had been no signal that this was coming, and it took the crypto world by surprise. Some, myself included, wondered if Trump’s Twitter was the latest casualty of a years-long slew of incidents in which high-profile Twitter accounts are compromised and used to shill fake crypto projects [W3IGG].

Yeah, I could see where some might think that this was a rogue operation, but, alas it was real. And of course the greedy fuckers tried to double down with the MELANIA$ shitcoin…

Nevertheless, $TRUMP turned out to be the genuine article [W3IGG], and so was the $MELANIA token that followed shortly after. Whoever launched the $MELANIA token perhaps thought they could replicate the successful $TRUMP cash-grab by simply doing the same thing all over again, not realizing that launching a second closely-linked token would directly compete with the first. Indeed, $TRUMP prices tanked 58% upon the $MELANIA launch [W3IGG]. The prices of both tokens have dwindled since, as memecoin prices often do. However, it seems to have succeeded in convincing even more people to get into crypto: an app called “Moonshot” briefly rose to the top of the app store rankings for free finance apps as Trump partnered with the platform to allow people to purchase his $TRUMP tokens using a debit card, Apple Pay, or Venmo.¹ Moonshot’s Twitter account is full of celebratory tweets and retweets about onboarding more non-crypto users, with one tweet reading “Boomers have onboarded”,² and a retweet of a person writing “my entire family including my 80 year old grandma is on” the app.³

Look, if sophisticated investors with ample resources want to gamble their money on stunts like this, fine. Have at it. But the intersection of MAGA rubes, apps that take all the friction out of the transaction, opening these risky investment vehicles to the lowest (or no) information investors is just awful³.

From JVL’s post, he comments on how easy it was to get on the train:

I do not usually dabble in crypto, but I poked around the $TRUMP website to see how hard it would be for, say, a working-class, middle-aged guy in rural America to figure out how to purchase the token. The answer was: very easy. Anyone with a fifth-grade education and a debit card can buy $TRUMP coins in about five minutes. (yes, this is also in the clip above, but I wanted to highlight it)

Crypto used to be somewhat of a chore to get ahold of, and the less sophisticated citizens would give up in despair. Now, especially with the defanging of the SEC, this is going to fleece a lot of vulnerable people of their savings and nest eggs.

Some of the elder statesmen of the Crypto world are beginning to become concerned:

While the crypto world has been loudly all in for Trump, his memecoin stunt was a bridge too far for some. Crypto venture capitalist and enthusiastic Trump supporter Nic Carter, who was attending the ball when the token was launched, told Politico, “It’s absolutely preposterous that he would do this ... They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the memecoin launch.”⁴ He later told the AP, “Now, on the cusp of getting some liberalization of crypto regulations in this country, the main thing people are thinking about crypto is, ‘Oh, it’s just a casino for these meme coins’.”

Yo, Nic, really? This is the depths of idiocy? This is your red line? GTFO.

Of course, the Dems in the house and senate are making their ineffective overtures.

Even crypto-friendly Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) joined in, writing “Elected officials must be barred from having meme coins by law.”⁷ Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) have written an Angry Letter asking multiple government agencies how they intend to address “the unprecedented concerns posed by the launch of the $Trump and $Melania meme coins, including the threats from consumer ripoffs, corruption and foreign influence, and President Trump’s conflicts of interest.”⁸ They note that “As President, Mr. Trump is responsible for nominating the leaders that will enforce our laws against crypto companies ... This creates an unavoidable conflict of interest, as he will be in a position to both benefit directly from the sale of the tokens while also setting the policy on how these markets are regulated.” While a letter of this sort is no surprise from staunchly anti-crypto Warren, Auchincloss has been a longtime vocal supporter of crypto.

Gee Mr. Khanna, you have been a motherfucking cheerleader for these motherfucking tech bros for so long that this is way too little and far too late. Sit the fuck down and eat your Wheaties.

No, this pre-inauguration flight of fancy is telegraphing the future of the Trump administration redux, the oligarchs and broligarchs will get obscene amounts of wealth siphoned from the rest of the country into their already overstuffed wallets, as they gorge themselves on extended and enhanced tax cuts.

This is, unfortunately, what we voted for, and it is what we deserve.

(And I didn’t even get to the obscenity that is the pardon of Ross Ulbricht)

1. If you are even a teensy bit curious about the folly and asshattery around Crypto, subscribing to Molly is a must. She delivers all her content for free, but if you find value, please help support her financially. She is literally the sanest voice on the topic of Crypto.

2. Fuck you spell checker. Criming is a word goddammit!

3. The coming gold rush of Crypto and the attendant scams and intermingling with the traditional finance ecosystem will soon create a crisis so deep that the fucking government will be forced to step in to bail out the shitbirds like Andreesen, Sacks and other twat waffles who have been huffing the paint that is Crypto. For fuck’s sake, there is talk about a $500B Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. Madness.

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