What Trump once described as a scam is now a glorious opportunity. 
An “Investment” for the Trump Family
The Wall Street Journal comments “The president had called cryptocurrency a ‘scam’ but during his campaign last year he was persuaded of its value, especially as an investment for the Trump family.“
Please consider The Forces That Flipped Trump From Crypto Critic to ‘Crypto President’
President Trump regaled a group of high-rollers visiting Mar-a-Lago about all his administration was doing for the cryptocurrency industry. Then he turned to all the crypto money he was making as president.
Trump’s personal meme coin, which he launched days before his inauguration, could bring in billions of dollars, the president said with an air of amazement. At one point, he turned to the audience—a group of donors who had each paid $1 million to his super PAC—and asked whether they knew what $Trump was worth.
One donor did, according to people who were at the March 1 gathering. It had a market cap of around $13 billion.
Other Mar-a-Lago guests that night included David Sacks, a longtime investor who now leads Trump’s cryptocurrency policy. Sacks said this week he had sold his crypto holdings and his company had divested its stakes in certain crypto startups. A representative for Sacks didn’t respond to a question about whether his firm retained investments in any crypto startups.
The success of $Trump is one of the starkest examples of the president benefiting from an industry his administration regulates.
From the view of crypto executives, the Trump administration has yielded a spectacular return on their investment.
Between the election and the inauguration, Trump met with at least eight crypto executives, collecting more than $50 million in donations for his inaugural fund and related groups, according to people familiar with the meetings.
During last year’s election campaign, crypto executives donated more than $16 million to pro-Trump groups. Super PACs backed by the industry spent more than $130 million on pro-crypto congressional candidates in both parties. Some also backed Harris.
Trump was president-elect when he signed the meme-coin deal, which has generated around $350 million worth of cryptocurrency USDC for entities affiliated with him, according to the blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. That figure, which includes both trading fees and what are essentially sales of the $TRUMP token, doesn’t include some unrealized losses.
‘Scam’ no more
Trump had criticized cryptocurrency for years, calling the industry a “scam” and a “disaster waiting to happen.”
Pronounced ‘me-me’
In September, Trump launched the cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial, which promised to “make crypto and America great.” His sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, serve as the fund’s “Web3 Ambassadors,” and Barron is “Chief DeFi Visionary.” An entity affiliated with Trump and his family members owns 60% of the equity interests.
“Crypto is one of those things we have to do,” Trump said at the time. “Whether we like it or not, we have to do it.”
The project swiftly drew criticism, including from crypto venture capitalist Nic Carter, who accused Trump’s inner circle of “cashing in” on crypto in a news article. Soon after, top Trump adviser Steve Witkoff, who co-founded the project, invited Carter to a Miami coffee shop and told him the startup would be operated with integrity.
Trump has since appointed Witkoff as his top negotiator in the Middle East and for the war in Ukraine.
Carter supports Trump but remains concerned. “Presidents shouldn’t be running businesses, especially not stuff where they can directly influence the outcome, which is clearly the case in crypto,” he said. As for Witkoff, Carter said, the role of peace negotiator was likely a better fit than crypto kingpin. Witkoff, Carter noted, had pronounced meme coins as “me-me coins.”
Trump and first lady Melania Trump launched their meme coins days before the inauguration. Executives and investors complained the tokens undermined industry credibility and raised ethical questions. But Trump was antsy to make a deal before he became president, a person who discussed the matter with him said.
Trump has since told Mar-a-Lago associates the coin might now be worth more than the club itself.
Q & A on Trump’s Support for Crypto
Q: Is crypto a scam?
A: Not any more.
Q: What happened?
A: “Crypto is one of those things we have to do, Whether we like it or not, we have to do it.”
Q: Why?
Q: It’s now an “Investment” for the Trump family
Q: Can I get in on it?
A: If you donate millions of dollars, the returns could be immense.
Q: How so?
A: Look no further than XRP, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Riipple owns 48 percent of XRP coins and now XRP is now an alleged official currency of the United States.
Q: How did that happen?
A: Garlinghouse contributed $5 million worth of XRP to Trump’s inauguration fund. Ripple also donated $45 million dollars to Fairshake, a Super PAC that supported pro-crypto congressional candidates and played a critical role in securing Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
Q: But I don’t have millions of dollars. Is there anything I can do to get in on this?
A: Sure. You can buy and lose all of your money in Trump and Melania coins?
Q: What’s the best way?
A: If you mean to lose money, then the best way is the Official Melania Meme Coin. It’s gone from a high of $13.69 on January 20 to $0.75.
Q: Why would I want to lose money?
A: As the Wall Street Journal reported it’s “An Investment for the Trump Family“. Do you want to help make America great again or not?
Tariff Threat
Please recall this threat: “We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs,” Trump said on Truth Social in a statement nearly identical to one he posted on Nov. 30.
By What Authority Can Trump Create a Strategic Crypto Reserve?
For discussion, please see By What Authority Can Trump Create a Strategic Crypto Reserve?
If the answer is none, then there won’t be one, without Congress.
The answer is none. Trump has no authority to fund a strategic crypto reserve. See the above link for details.
Well, who cares about that because …. “Whether we like it or not, we have to do it.”
And everyone knows, you gotta do what you gotta do.
So, is Trump going to put 100 percent tariffs on the US for making XRP a reserve currency?
Let’s distinguish between Bitcoin and Crypto. Bitcoin has no executives and no money to donate. Crypto is different because they can create money out of thin air — just like banks that own the Federal Reserve. Banks donating to politicians is just as bad as venture capital-backed crypto companies donating to politicians.
One bone to pick: The question was “By What Authority Can Trump Create a Strategic Crypto Reserve?” The answer was: “The answer is none. Trump has no authority to fund a strategic crypto reserve.” Note the switcharoo.There is a difference between creating a reserve seeded with assets the government already owns and authorizing new funding for new purchases funded with new debt.
I bought XRP in 2017 for $.48. I’ve seen it go as low as $.11 cents but I hodl and saw it go to $3.46. XRP has utility, Banks will use it once the SEC is finally off their backs. Then, I believe it will get up to between $7 & $8. Some say much higher.
Crypto is not just memes and Bitcoin.Time to do some research Folks.
“The success of $Trump…..”
$Trump was a success for about 2 days around inauguration day when it was trading for as much as $72 and was bought up by literal fools. It’s been steadily declining ever since.
It hit a record low of $10.25 today.
I’ve been making jokes about the daily record lows of $Melania meme coin, but it’s not a joke that people actually lost real money on this scam.
What this tells me is there is too much money in all markets: real estate, stocks, and crypto. When all you hear is BTFD then you know we are super saturated. Last time that I saw this was the Internet crash of March 2000.
Let them lose money. Don’t feel sorry for them. No one is going to feel sorry for you. I lost a ton back in 2000 because I thought I was smarter than the markets and it always goes up. Boy, was I taught a lesson.
I find this very disappointing that Trump and his clan are pushing crypto and his/her coins too! Very disingenuous. I guess he took trading lessons from Nancy Pelosi, Dave Crenshaw and the rest of Congress.
I remember the line from the Wall Street when Bud Fox asks Gekko how much is enough. He yells back “It’s never enough.” These people all suffer from insatiable greed. One of the Cardinal Sins.
Every Trump investment is a scam. There isn’t a single business he hasn’t failed at.
Scams and failures include commensurate damages to some entity. Now then, we are talking countries and continents today. Where will the chips fall?
Admittedly, early on in our nation’s history, there was a LOT of government and other elite self-dealing. Some big, well-placed names fell spectacularly. Early financial player Robert Morris, who knew “everybody,” played around the early financing of the Republic, and spent about 2 years in debtors’ prison, after defaulting on a dodgy deal leaving many trusting people in the lurch. But this, now, has to be in very strong competition for a season of the greatest conflicts of interest ever. There are SO many funnels to direct cash to Trump/his family. And its being so blatant is so downright weird. I am waiting for all the MAGA fans to say anything faintly credible about the ethics here.
So back when the US was great there was a lot of self-dealing and if we want the US to be great again we need to bring back self-dealing in a big way? Did I do that right?
…and for every dollar that goes to Trump and his friends, a dollar comes out of the real economy. This is not a victimless scam.
No conflict of interest here (once again).
I’ll stick with gold.
I agree. I know I’m being silly, but take the L out of gold and you got God. I’ll stick with the truth. All this financial bluster is just lies for how screwed up our government and economy is. We are broke. Still waiting on Ft. Knox audit. Musk? Trump? Congress? (crickets)
I just can’t get past equating crypto with tulips🤷🏻♂️
Kevin Hassett forgets Econ 101https://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2025/03/kevin-hassett-forgets-econ-101.html
[1W] SPX hit a Lazer and popped up. If it’s over next stop: 6,500/6,700.
[1W] BTCUSD is backing up > Mar 2024 high. Last week Mar 3 was the first (C) under Dec 16 low.
S&P next stop 5500. Then 5000. Then look out below. Could be a pop or two along the way to reel in some more retail suckers.
Futures all turned negative.
WTF are you talking about?
I know a guy who pulled $1/2 mil out of his 2nd home’s equity to buy bitcoin. It was close to $100k then. It’s about $77k now. Oh well, he’s rich.
I don’t know if crypto is a scam. But it’s undoubtedly very risky. At this point, all I see in crypto is that it is a trading vehicle and nothing else.
Indeed, and how liquid are the participants, and how liquid is the market?
What yield is offerred? Any credit ratings available? Financial statements based on audits? Balance sheets?
So far, it has been an amazing vehicle to separate naive punters from trillions (with a “T”) of their dollars. It is a perfect setup, still, to rug-pull people’s money and disappear. The security is often abysmal ($1.5 billion hack not two weeks ago, apparently went to the North Korean mischief & nukes fund). The most credible (and hilarious) critiques I’ve seen are at David Gerard’s site, Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain.
How would it survive a Carrington event?
About as well as the rest of western civilization.
Crypto is full of scams. A lot of the coins are speculative gambling tokens — and do not pretend to be anything more than that. But Bitcoin is no scam. There are scammers who might try to scam you out of your Bitcoin, but that’s different. It’s risky in the sense that it is volatile, but it is the only asset that becomes safer the bigger it gets (because it needs to reach a certain size before it can attract deeper and deeper pools of capital).