Might 22, 2025
Why are 16 Democrats abetting this nice sting?
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The $Trump memecoing with Bitcoin and different crypto cash.(Sipa / AP Pictures)
Thursday evening, as a part of his brazen violation of the Structure and legal guidelines that he swore to defend, President Donald Trump is internet hosting an “intimate dinner” for the 220 largest purchasers of $TRUMP, the memecoin he launched days earlier than taking workplace. Along with lining Trump’s pockets, attendees may have a lot to rejoice. Earlier this week, the Senate—aided and abetted by 16 Democrats—handed the GENIUS Act, a cryptocurrency regulatory act, designed and primarily paid for by the crypto foyer. Collectively, the dinner and the laws are milestones on the street to what’s prone to be often known as the Nice Sting, the largest and most expensive con in our historical past.
In his first time period, Trump appropriately dismissed crypto as a rip-off. Crypto has had few makes use of, past hypothesis and crime—offering a secretive entrepôt for cash laundering, tax evasion, and funding scams. It has additionally had a rising drawback with safety; it’s estimated that hackers made off with greater than $2 billion in 2024.
The trade’s biggest success has been in corrupting politics. In 2024, it was, after Elon Musk, the largest deep pocket within the electioncontributing on to the defeat of progressives like Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and former consultant Katie Porter (D-CA). And naturally, to the victory of Donald Trump.
It didn’t take Trump lengthy to understand that crypto was his sort of hustle. Simply earlier than taking workplace, he launched $TRUMP and $MELANIA, memecoins—cryptocurrencies often known as “shitcoins” within the trade—as a result of they’re backed by nothing and don’t have any worth apart from in hypothesis. Trump even disclosed this to his clients, the web site stating, “This isn’t an funding alternative. It’s best to do that to rejoice me, to rejoice my management, my willingness to struggle, struggle, struggle.”
Not surprisingly, the memecoins initially soared in worth after which crashed, with Trump’s operation incomes hundreds of thousands in transaction charges alongside the best way.
Trump’s memecoin additionally served primarily as bagman for gathering bribes and payoffs from nations and principally international oligarchs looking for favors. Trump’s visitor checklist for the dinner continues to be not public, however consultants conclude that many of the “wallets” had been international in origin. One among his largest purchasers is the notorious Justin Solar, who put $75 million into the pot in two extremely publicized purchases. Quickly thereafter, the SEC “paused” the fraud investigation into him. Trump has introduced that he would launch one other $800 million in his memecoin over the course of his second time period.
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Trump’s World Liberty Monetary Firm has additionally launched a stablecoin—the USD1. Stablecoins are pegged to the greenback, which is meant to supply them with worth. Trump’s stablecoin turned one other car for these looking for favors, illustrated by a United Arab Emirates backed agency saying that it might purchase $2 billion to make use of in buy of the digital foreign money trade, Binance. As soon as extra, Trump would pocket hundreds of thousands in charges.
All instructed, Forbes estimates that Trump pulled in about $290 million within the first months of his presidency. In Trump’s transactional presidency, Qatar’s large, lovely airplane is merely a sidelight to the true grift.
Massive cash talks in politics. It buys lobbyists and promoters, pollsters, coverage hacks, and politicians. And it buys bipartisan help—and that’s the place the true menace lies. Most of this nation’s main catastrophes—Vietnam, NAFTA, monetary deregulation, Afghanistan, Iraq—have been propelled with bipartisan fervor. And that’s the following stage of the crypto-con.
To realize a patina of legitimacy, the crypto trade needs what Beltway pundits name a “gentle contact” regulatory framework—one that gives the innocents with a false sense of confidence with out interfering with the insiders. Thus, the cryptolobby pushed arduous to disarm the cops on the beat, whereas passing new token regulation. Not surprisingly, they dubbed the latter GENIUS.
Trump instantly took on the primary job. He named David Sacks, a person with a speckled historical past in cryptocurrency, as his “crypto czar,” offering him with an “ethics waiver,” whereas firing the Senate-confirmed head of the Workplace of Authorities Ethics. Paul Atkins, a crypto foreign money marketing consultant, was confirmed as head of the SEC. Led by the pinnacle of the Crypto Process Power, Commissioner Hester Peirce, dubbed the “crypto mother” by trade wags, the SEC has paused or dismissed investigations launched beneath Biden, whereas declaiming towards “regulation by enforcement.” Musk’s DOGE operation disemboweled the Shopper Monetary Safety Company, which was policing numerous digital banking schemes. The Justice Division disbanded its nationwide cryptocurrency enforcement unit. Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick headed Cantor Fitzgerald, primarily the banker of Tether, infamous because the “go to cryptocurrency for worldwide criminals.” Trump introduced the creation of a US Cryptocurrency Reserve—with Sacks, his crypto foreign money czar, closely invested within the 5 crypto currencies within the reserve.
The cryptolobby then turned to the Congress to move its Potemkin Village regulation. The GENIUS Act would require stablecoins to keep up sufficient reserves, to stick to primary guidelines, and to provide precedence to buyers in case of chapter.
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That’s a joke. The act offers few requirements on redeeming the cash, opening the best way for imposing excessive charges or lengthy wait occasions. Reserves needn’t be backed by personal deposit insurance coverage, solely by reserves that may embrace uninsured cash market funds, international establishments, or uninsured demand deposits. The act exempts the stablecoins from the SEC and makes no provision for the CFPB. And naturally, Trump’s crew has dismantled the enforcers.
Senator Elizabeth Warren detailed the shortcomings of the act, concluding that it’s “worse than no invoice in any respect.” It handed the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 66–32, with each Republican and 16 Democrats becoming a member of in. These Democrats—Alsobrooks, Blunt, Rochester, Booker, Cortez Masto, Fetterman, Gallego, Gillibrand, Hassan, Heinrich, Lujan, Ossoff, Padilla, Rosen, Schiff, Slotkin, Warner—are complicit within the calamities to return.
The hucksters are free to fleece their marks. Solely now there’s a pretense of federal oversight. The peril is clear. Amazon, Meta, and X and different tech corporations can concern their very own currencies. As pension funds, state governments, college endowments, and personal retirement accounts broaden their investments in cryptocurrencies, they achieve this with a false sense that the federal authorities is on the beat.
It is a set-up for the best pump and dump rip-off ever. The costs will spiral up—and once they crash, as they inevitably will—the harmless and the insiders, the conners and the conned will demand that the Federal Reserve intervene, and put a ground beneath the value, make the buyers complete. How do we all know that is true? As a result of a lot of the cryptocurrency crowd—together with David Sacks—had been caught in the Silicon Valley Financial institution collapsewith hundreds of thousands of uninsured deposits. For all their supposed free market, macho-anarcho blather, they raised hysterical cries for the Federal Reserve to intervene—which it did, making an exception to its personal guidelines to avoid wasting their fortunes. What the Senate simply did—within the bipartisan folly of each Republican and 16 Democrats—is about the stage for a rerun of that sordid present on a way more grotesque scale.
Robert L. Borosage
Robert L. Borosage is a number one progressive author and activist.
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