President-elect Donald Trump has now found yet another way to convince his followers to throw their money his way — this time with a questionable cryptocurrency venture.Axios is reporting that the soon-to-be 47th president of the United States has rolled out a "meme coin" dubbed $TRUMP, which is bei...
  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    44·
    16 hours ago

    Axios is reporting that the soon-to-be 47th president of the United States has rolled out a “meme coin” dubbed $TRUMP, which is being billed as the “only official Trump meme.” According to Axios, $TRUMP has already accumulated a valuation of roughly $32 billion. And because the Trump Organization is keeping 80% of the coins, this means the president-elect and his businesses are roughly $25 billion richer as a result.

    80%. Hmm.

    https://www.axios.com/2025/01/19/trump-meme-coin-what-to-know

    Reserving 80% of the new supply for the team is an awful lot. It’s usually more like 10% to 30%.

    It’d be interesting to see who is buying.

    I mean, yeah, one possibility is that it’s supporters getting fleeced here, which is what the article is proposing.

    But I suppose, without having a lot of familiarity with the structure here, that it could also be a route to launder funds. Supposing I wanted to bribe the President to do something. If I buy this, I’m increasing the value of the asset, and most of that asset is held by Trump – that’s functionally transferring wealth to Trump’s pockets.

    If I buy, say, shares in a publicly-traded company, then the SEC can see what’s going on. But I don’t think that they have direct visibility into who is purchasing coins on a coin exchange.

    EDIT: Hmm. Okay, so I’m not really in the loop on this – not something that I’ve been super-interested in – but it does sound like (a) they assert that they do have that ability and (b) exchanges have not been doing so.

    https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023-102

    SEC Charges Coinbase for Operating as an Unregistered Securities Exchange, Broker, and Clearing Agency Coinbase also charged for the unregistered offer and sale of securities in connection with its staking-as-a-service program.

    As alleged in the SEC’s complaint, Coinbase’s failure to register has deprived investors of significant protections, including inspection by the SEC, recordkeeping requirements, and safeguards against conflicts of interest, among others.

    • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      30·
      16 hours ago

      This is blatantly a bribery scheme, with untraceability as a feature. Everyone knew it was coming, and there’s nothing to be done about it because the recipient now controls the Justice Dept, which is the only organization that’s likely to have the resources to trace the payments.

    • ArbiterXero@lemmy.world
      17·
      15 hours ago

      Yep, it doesn’t feel like a pump n dump, but very public bribery.

      Hard to tell for sure, but it’s got a strange flavour to it.

      Time will tell.

      • jonne@infosec.pub
        5·
        11 hours ago

        Eventually it’ll dump. I can’t imagine this coin having much utility post-Trump presidency, whenever and however that ends.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        3·
        14 hours ago

        I mean, I just don’t have the expertise to say on the legal/regulatory side. Someone who has a background in securities and has been following the cryptocurrency situation would probably be in a better position.

        I suppose that there will be people who do have such a background looking at it. The fact that it’s the President – who is in charge of the Executive Branch – and that most media that might be reporting on it has a partisan position makes this a lot more complicated.

        Still, wouldn’t be the first time that we’ve run into high-level graft in the Executive Branch. Dealt with it then.