Trump’s Great American Crypto Scam
If you’re a news consumer, you’re a crypto news consumer. The individuals shaping the crypto industry are incredibly influential and constantly in the public eye. Even holding a diversified index fund means you’re now indirectly invested in crypto through companies that have embraced it.
These trends predate Donald Trump’s return, but his administration’s embrace of crypto elevates the stakes. If you’ve been trying to ignore crypto, now’s the time to pay attention. It’s time to navigate the complex world of digital assets and understand their impact on our political and financial systems.
How can something so unserious be so mission-critical to living here in 2025? Just by existing in America’s political and financial systems, we and crypto have taken a substantial interest in each other. Our best hope of surviving the deluge is to master the art of separating the serious crypto things from the unserious ones.
Unserious: The Dream of Crypto as Currency
Less than a fifth of Americans have ever directly owned crypto or used it for transactions. The vision of crypto as a mainstream payment method, challenging traditional currencies, remains largely unrealized. Yet, despite this, crypto’s cultural influence is undeniable.
Serious: Crypto as a Political Powerhouse
Crypto backers have become a significant force in political spending. According to the progressive think tank Public Citizen, crypto interests accounted for nearly half of the corporate money spent on the 2024 federal elections. Only the fossil fuel industry outspent crypto in influencing politics. “It’s like the corporate money Death Star,” researchers behind the report said last fall.
Both Serious and Unserious: Cryptocurrency as an Investment Vehicle
Bitcoin recently surpassed $100,000, a development that raises questions about its underlying value. Its worth is based on the collective confidence that someone else will buy it from us, which appears surreal.
Serious: Corruption and the Trump Crypto Tokens
Donald and Melania Trump launched their own crypto tokens in January, serving as potential tools for bribery, as well as boosting the perceived value of Trump’s holdings. While sophisticated traders profited from these coins, many faced losses. The Trump family allegedly made approximately $100 million in trading fees alone, according to crypto experts and a review by the New York Times. It’s a situation where the president and his family use regular people as a financial resource, creating a conflict of interest.
Our nation’s anti-corruption laws were never designed to address a situation where the most powerful person in the country establishes a crypto token in his name.
Unserious: The Illusion of Value Created by the Meme Coin Launch
The launch of Trump’s meme coin created significant market volatility, and many outlets reported gains derived from it. Trump’s companies possessed 800 million of the coin’s one billion total coins. While at one point, Axios reported that Trump was worth $56 billion, owning 800 million coins priced at $70 each, the lack of liquidity of many holdings meant this valuation was likely inflated. As the coin price has since fallen, Trump’s holdings are now worth more like $3 billion.
The example of Slate creating their own coin reinforces how easy it is to artificially inflate the market capitalization of a specific coin.
Serious: Big Companies and Crypto’s Growing Presence
MicroStrategy, a business intelligence company, has invested billions in Bitcoin. The company’s value has significantly increased due to its Bitcoin holdings. Companies like Coinbase, Robinhood Markets, and BlackRock allow for indirect investments in crypto, making it a factor in most investors’ financial futures.
MicroStrategy just changed its name to Strategy and made its logo look like the Bitcoin logo.
Unserious: The Myth of Decentralization
The core promise of crypto was decentralization — that it would exist outside the control of authorities. While the underlying technology, blockchain, is decentralized, the practical use of crypto has become extremely centralized. Most people store their crypto on exchanges like Coinbase, which has considerable control over user assets. You can’t ignore the rise of ETFs to enter the crypto space, which, in turn, reduces the decentralized nature of digital currencies.
You can choose to look at crypto as a part of the traditional financial system, or pretend it is the countercultural freedom force that its earliest proponents made it out to be. Doing both is impossible.
