this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 23 hours ago

So how can we poison it?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 23 hours ago

It’d be interesting to see who is buying.

Lots of foreign nations. Lots.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day 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.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Look at the bright side: only a die-hard magard would fall for this grift. So when Trump pulls the rug, the magards will finally realize they've been took.

In other words, Trump is innoculating his own followers with the cure for Trumpism.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 day ago

the magards will finally realize they've been took

No they won't. They will line up for the next one. The only reason they will ever stop is because they have nothing left. And then when they have nothing they will blame immigrants, woke, Soros, or whoever for their lot in life.

There are people who exist in this world who can not comprehend that the actions they take lead in part to the consequences that follow. The only thing that can be done is to watch from the side them losing everything and then getting out of the way as best one can in their fit of rage.

Sort of like a person with a gambling addiction putting the last $10k of their life savings into a slot machine. We know what's going to happen, there is nothing that can stop it from happening.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 day ago

This was a money laundering scheme. Foreign governments and companies (foreign and domestic) who want favor with trump are the ones who bought in.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Trump has been running the same scams for decades. There's probably tons of bag holders for his NFT scam that are loading up on TRUMP and MELANIA. He's got a whole mailing list of gullible marks and he keeps butchering that pig until there's nothing left.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Nah. They'll double down to own the libs

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He’ll just gish gallop his way out of it. Whatever smoke screen he comes up with will make his followers lose focus on all the money they have lost. Example:

Oh wow, look at this immigrant caravan from Panama. Let’s invade and stop them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Or he'll just claim he wasn't a part of it and "some very bad people" are the ones responsible for their losses.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago

His fans think they’re sticking it to everyone by doing this. It’s maybe the most incredible confidence man job I’ve ever seen. He’s harvesting everything they can yield and they’re sneering at us while they lose it all.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago

It’s not dumping if it was money laundering all along.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

All you need to know about investing in Donald j trump investment vehicles:

  1. Ryan Cohen a known extreme trump supporter endorsed Donald J Trump within days of crashing the short interest on GameStop Stock by selling billions in shares for cash he did not need as he already had nearly 1 billion saved. He did this to be timed with when the shorts were going to start buying. He betrayed every single one of his long term investors for thieves shorting companies illegally, then turned around and endorsed Donald Drumpf on X(itter). This is Donnie's game plan, and every single one of his billionaire supporters game plan for how the next 4 yrs is going to go. Do not invest in anything even remotely related to Donald J Trump. It's more than likely a ponzi scheme, even the viable businesses are just going to pump and dump then leave you holding the bags.
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Oh, I didn't realise he'd outed himself as a piece of shit

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Memes are getting pretty gross.

Maybe we should slow down the meme magic train…

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You'd think he'd be able to afford a cap that fits his soggy meat container he calls a head.

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