A month ago I mentioned the Trump meme coin (“Transactional Trump continues to set records for raking in money” issued on January 17 and designed to line the pockets of Trump, his family, and his cronies.
As of February 11, “More than 813,000 crypto wallets have lost a total of $2 billion after buying President Donald Trump’s meme coin,” while the Trump Organization and its partners have pocketed a cool $100 million in trading fees.
But profiting off unsophisticated fans (I hesitate to say, ‘investors’) is not as significant for Trump as the backdoor the coin offers for unlimited and unseen corruption. In the words of Representative Jake Auchincloss (interviewed this week by Ezra Klein):
Not to be too doomer about it, but Trump issued the Trump coin. And that Trump coin is the equivalent of issuing the account number for a Swiss bank account, telling foreign adversaries they can deposit funds into that account anonymously but then come and show him the receipts privately to prove that they have done so. It is the most brazen act of corruption of the modern presidency.
And if people don’t think that the Chinese and the Saudis and the Turks and the Qataris are buying some of that coin, I think they are deeply naive.
Watch closely over the next few weeks and months for changes in public policy directed by Trump to enrich savvy investors (who make money from folks less savvy) behind various cryptocurrencies. The house always wins.
Moreover, because transactions are conducted in secrecy, and Trump is unlikely to permit federal oversight or regulation of the cryptocurrency, bribes from crooked Americans seeking favors and foreigners seeking to corruptly influence U.S. foreign policy will be hidden from view.
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