The $Trump Pump and Dump

One of the things that President Donald Trump has championed this time around, as a convert, is crypto. He has declared that the USA would become the crypto capital of the world. This is a long haul from his starting position back in his first term, where he declared that cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin appeared to be “based on thin air”.

Above AI image of President Donald Trump generated by OpenAI Art 02/01/2025

In truth, no matter how the crypto currency is created or in the case of Bitcoin, artificially limited in issuance, the fact is that it's not money, only credit. Unlike the currencies of nation states, to include digital currencies like the digiyuan or digiruble, crypto is not based on physical gold, silver or oil or any other commodity that a nation holds in its reserves or exports. Nor as a trustless asset does Bitcoin have any link to the creditworthiness of a particular country and the management of national finances.

For Bitcoin maxis like former RT show host Max Keiser, this is precisely the point of BTC. It's also what makes BTC attractive as a vehicle for a 'great reset' of the massively overindebted, insolvent (G)7 of the Collective West. For Bitcoin haters like California Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman, BTC is a vehicle for the evil Russians to bust sanctions and for cybercriminals to complete their illicit transactions on the dark web. But in reality, due to every BTC transaction being 'on-chain' and therefore traceable by the NSA and other Western 5Eyes signals intelligence agencies, even for transactions between somewhat anonymized cold wallets that have been kept offline--BTC is less-than-ideal for large scale sanctions-busting or the drug trade.

This is a major reason why Russia as the most sanctioned nation on Earth has moved forward, but rather cautiously, on constructing its own crypto transactions eco-system with a clear legal preference for BTC mined within the Russian Federation. As for Latin America, despite the existence of privacy coins like Monero (XMR), which has some circulation in cocaine-growing parts of South America, the Mexican drug cartels still prefer cold hard cash. They enjoy laundering their narco-profits via the respectable economy and megabanks without much need for converting cash into Bitcoin, despite a few publicized cases.

Donald Trump’s turnabout on crypto is almost as startling as his turnabout on "Lil' Marco" Rubio, about whom he said in his first term that he would not trust to run his smallest and weakest company, but who is now running the State Department. However, Trump is not just talk, he puts his money where his mouth is, or rather, he puts your money where his mouth is. Three days before his inauguration, on January 17, 2025, Trump held a huge party for crypto industry bigwigs, just a 15 minutes walk from the White House. During the festivities, Trump’s site announced the launch of the Donald Trump $Trump meme coin. Trump announced it’s coming out with the words:

“My new official Trump meme is here! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: Winning! Join my very special Trump community”.

Above screenshot from Binance listing of the MAGATrump coin

For those not familiar with memecoins--often derogatorily labeled both within and without the crypto industry as shitcoins--they are the most volatile form of an already highly-volatile investment vehicle. The reason they are called meme coins is because they are so volatile that a simple meme can cause them to shift in market value rapidly.

So launched the $Trump coin with an initial issue of 200 million, 160 million of which were owned by one of Trump’s companies and his close partners. The rest, all 40 million of them were set into the market for sale. It should be noted that there are actually 1 billion $Trump coins and the other 800 million will be sold off over the next 3 years.

The initial results were astounding, launching off at $0.17, within two days it hit its high of $74.71. Trump became an instant cryptobillionaire. Hundreds of thousands of investors, most of them absolutely crypto-newbie Trump fans piled in.

Above screenshot courtesy of WIONews.com YouTube channel, Noida, India

By January 19, Trump’s estimated net worth reached 89% Crypto, valued at $56.6 billion. All his other assets including his global hotels and luxury real estate empire as well as two (three)-time presidency winner-enhanced clothing brands amounted to $5.2 billion.

The first drop came on Inauguration Day, when FLOTUS Melania Trump announced her own memecoin. The Trump high of $74.71 fell to $57.90. Two days later on January 22, 2025 it hit its second high of $71.62, but it's since collapsed down to the $29 range.

Already approximately 100,000 investors have lost money, but not POTUS47, who had never really invested any money in the launch but startup fees. So any price above the artificially set $0.17 is already a win. It's unclear whether Trump has sold off any of his and his partners’ 160 million $Trump coins, since he still has another 800 million to sell. If he does and does so quickly, it will be the classic Pump and Dump. Regardless, even at this level, a fast sell-off of a less than transparent financial vehicle, will net the president and his closest something around $20 billion.

Many crypto industry players are outraged. This has led to a big hit on their already oshaky credibility. Never mind how this looks like profiteering from the second Trump presidency, even if it's legal, it smacks of hucksterism. But is there a more fundamental conflict of interest?

Yes and no. On the one hand, the laws governing conflicts of interest for senior politicians and government employees exclude the President and VP, just like insider trading laws exclude some of the most successful insider traders of all time: the US Congress. On the other hand, the President has direct say and control over how the crypto markets are managed and regulated by the Executive Branch.

So, a crypto billionaire is now the final voice in the regulation and management of the crypto sector of the would-be crypto capital of the world, the same nation that hosts Wall Street which has brought us every single major financial collapse since 1907.

What on earth could go wrong?