Trump's Meme Coin Corruption Scheme

Cryptocurrency is a digital form of money, marketed by supporters as an alternative to traditional banking and government.

Handing a check to the president in exchange for his time—and even favorable policies—is textbook corruption. And while Trump hasn’t been that brazen, he’s coming the closest he’s ever gotten with his crypto schemes.

Cryptocurrency is a digital form of money, marketed by supporters as an alternative to traditional banking and government. Transactions rely on blockchains, the decentralized and shared public networks that store transactions.

Many types of crypto (there are tens of thousands) have become hotbeds for scams and speculation—the president himself has said that they’re “highly volatile and based on thin air.”

But in the past year, Trump has largely changed his tune. He has become a major advocate for bringing cryptocurrencies to the mainstream. At the same time, his family and their affiliates have expanded crypto ventures that are serving to enrich Trump.

If he succeeds in “mainstreaming” crypto, he’ll not only open the doors to more corruption. He’ll also expand an incredibly harmful industry with big impacts on our health, climate, resources, and economic well-being.

A growing boom wouldn’t just enrich Trump and crypto kingpins—dirty energy companies will benefit, too, while the rest of us are left holding the bag.

Trump’s Meme Coin Corruption Scheme

There are thousands of kinds of cryptocurrencies; you might have heard of the most common one, Bitcoin. This year, Trump released his own coin right before inauguration day.

The Trump coin (stylized as “$TRUMP”) is a meme coin, a crypto asset that is closer to a Beanie Baby than any kind of currency. Meme coins are a novelty item associated with an internet trend, and they have no economic or transactional value.

Their price isn’t based on anything but popularity. This makes them very volatile, as those prices can change on a dime. Investing in meme coins is speculative; it’s basically a gamble that you’ll buy when the price is low and sell when it rises, making a profit.

For example, CNN reports that $TRUMP went from $6.50 at launch to $75 just two days later. At that point, Trump’s wealth from the coin surged to $56.6 billion. In more recent weeks, the price has been in the $10-$15 range.

When $TRUMP saw a slump in April, Trump drove it up again when he announced he’d host a dinner with the 220 people who own the most of the coin. The deal was clear: buy the president’s crypto (which he benefits from financially) and get access to him. The coin’s price quickly rose nearly 60%.

At launch, affiliates of the Trump Organization owned 80% of $TRUMP coins. This means that any growth in the coin’s value largely benefits those firms. But Trump doesn’t just win if $TRUMP prices rise; he also benefits with every transaction.

In less than two months, shadowy firms connected to Trump have made an estimated $350 million in $TRUMP trading fees.

Trump Opens the Gates for the Crypto Industry

The president has now fully embedded himself in crypto world. Less than two months before the 2024 election, he launched World Liberty Financial, a company that trades in crypto. A Trump-affiliated company has a 60% ownership stake in World Liberty and takes in 75% of net revenue from coin purchases.

And while Trump is making a fortune from crypto, his administration is also working to make U.S. policies more crypto-friendly—a glaring conflict of interest.

Notably, World Liberty now issues a “stablecoin,” a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to a real-world asset (in this case, the dollar). Boosters argue that this will make stablecoins more practical for everyday transactions.

Just a week before World Liberty announced its new stablecoin, Trump called on lawmakers to pass legislation to govern and legitimize stablecoin.

Under Trump, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has paused probes into a dozen crypto companies. The Department of Justice recently disbanded a team going after crypto criminals, and the new chairman of the SEC is a crypto advocate.

More recently, the Trump administration rolled back Biden-era guidance to keep crypto deposits out of banks and crypto investments out of retirement accounts.

Trump also issued an executive order to promote crypto’s growth and another instructing the Treasury Department to create a government crypto stockpile. (World Liberty’s crypto holdings jumped in value when he announced the stockpile would include a coin that the company had invested in.)

If Trump gets his way, crypto will sneak into our everyday lives. And this all makes even more sense once you know that crypto donors spent millions electing him.

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