加密货币如何征服华盛顿并为下一个泡沫奠定了基础

2025年2月11日，位于众议院金融服务委员会的伊利诺伊州民主党代表肖恩·卡斯滕（Sean Casten）代表索恩·卡斯滕（Sean Casten）在公开听证会上询问了加密货币行业的高管，他听证会上有关美国总统的危险，发起了一个纪念物。这些加密代币也被称为“ shitcoins”，因为它们被广泛认为是毫无价值的，这是用于泵和降低计划的工具。由于国会礼节的规则并没有使自己适应21世纪金融技术的粗俗惯例，因此卡斯滕不得不仔细地表达他的问题。

On February 11, 2025, Representative Sean Casten, an Illinois Democrat who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, questioned crypto industry executives at a public hearing about the dangers of the president of the United States launching a memecoin. These crypto tokens are also known as “shitcoins” since they’re widely considered worthless, a tool for pump-and-dump schemes. Because the rules of congressional decorum had not yet accommodated themselves to the vulgar conventions of 21st-century financial technologies, Casten had to phrase his question carefully.

2025年2月11日，位于众议院金融服务委员会的伊利诺伊州民主党代表肖恩·卡斯滕（Sean Casten）代表索恩·卡斯滕（Sean Casten）在公开听证会上询问了加密货币行业的高管，他听证会上有关美国总统的危险，发起了一个纪念物。这些加密代币也被称为“ shitcoins”，因为它们被广泛认为是毫无价值的，这是用于泵和降低计划的工具。由于国会礼节的规则尚未使自己适应21世纪金融技术的庸俗惯例，因此卡斯滕不得不仔细地表达他的问题。

“It’s hard to talk about memecoins with the language that the industry uses to talk about them,” Casten said. “We’ll refer to them as ‘fecal coins’ for the purposes of this hearing. Is it safe to say from your smiles that you generally share the view of the industry that this is not something that has any innate value?”

Casten说：“很难用该行业用来谈论它们的语言来谈论Memecoins。” “出于这次听证会的目的，我们将它们称为'粪便硬币'。从微笑中可以肯定地说，您通常会分享该行业的看法，这不是具有任何先天价值的东西吗？”

“Yes,” an industry representative replied.

“是的，”行业代表回答。

“The president of the United States issued something that has no innate value,” Casten said, before going on to talk about how retail traders may have lost billions speculating on the $TRUMP fecal coin.

卡斯滕说：“美国总统发行了没有天生价值的东西。”继续谈论零售商人如何失去数十亿美元投机在$ trump粪便硬币上。

On social media, crypto boosters were less interested in Casten’s charge that the president was swindling Americans than they were galvanized into transforming Casten’s cheeky euphemism into the very sort of worthless financial instrument it sought to describe. Less than two hours later, someone had created a memecoin under the ticker symbol $FECAL and started an X account and Telegram group to pump the token, urging speculators to buy $FECAL. The token’s price never rose above $0.00007, but about $6 million worth of the made-up coin was traded that day before it sputtered toward irrelevance. It was the kind of shitcoin pump-and-dump that happens hundreds of times a day, but this one was connected to the words and actions of a congressman. The logo for the token had Casten’s face on it.

在社交媒体上，加密助推器对Casten的指控不太感兴趣，即总统正在欺骗美国人，而不是被镀锌将Casten厚脸皮的士气转变为它想要描述的一种毫无价值的金融工具。不到两个小时后，有人在股票符号$粪便下创建了一个成员，并成立了一个X帐户和电报组来泵送令牌，敦促投机者购买$粪便。代币的价格从未上涨超过0.00007美元，但在那天的交易中，约有价值600万美元的化妆硬币在朝着无关紧要的情况下进行了交易。每天发生数百次，这是一种狗屎币的泵和雨衣，但这与国会议员的言语和行动有关。令牌的徽标上有卡斯滕的脸。

The $FECAL episode was a small but telling sign of how crypto, despite being a relative flop commercially, has infiltrated American politics. Once the memecoin appeared, Casten’s unremarkable comment turned into an opportunity for graft and self-dealing, however ludicrously conceived and executed. Casten recognized as much. If he weren’t a known critic of the crypto lobby, Casten said, the token might have provoked some suspicion—that, say, the congressman was in on the grift. “You should be asking me hard questions about that, right?” he said. “It’s insane.”

$粪便的一集很小，但说明了加密货币的迹象，尽管在商业上是一个相对的失败，但仍渗透了美国的政治。一旦Memecoin出现，Casten的不明显的评论就变成了嫁接和自我交流的机会，无论构思和执行多么可笑。卡斯滕认识到很多。卡斯滕说，如果他不是加密大厅的著名批评者，那么代币可能会引起一些怀疑 - 例如，国会议员正在陷入困境。 “您应该问我关于这个问题的棘手问题，对吗？”他说。 “太疯狂了。”

If no part of society is immune from the all-powerful hand of the market, the same might now be said of crypto. Never has so much power, authority, and attention been afforded to such an economically unproductive industry. Never has so much energy and human potential been wasted chasing illusory profits in a business that relies on Ponzi economics. And never have politicians had so many opportunities for clandestine personal enrichment, in a parallel financial system that they’ve largely let run amok.

如果没有社会的一部分不受市场的全力影响，那么现在可以说同样的是加密货币。这种经济上没有生产力的行业从来没有如此多的权力，权威和关注。在依靠庞氏经济学的业务中追逐虚幻的利润，从来没有如此多的能量和人类潜力。而且，在平行的金融体系中，政客从来没有如此多的机会来实现秘密的个人充实机会，以至于他们在很大程度上让竞选Amok。

The cryptocurrency industry is about as old as the iPhone, yet it has accomplished very little, despite burning through hundreds of billions of real dollars to prop up a technology that still lacks much of a rationale for being introduced as legal currency. Through multiple bubbles, crypto has failed to scale beyond a base of hardcore believers and retail speculators who keep the casino running. It’s created more heartache than shared prosperity. It’s better known for its growing list of fraudulent companies than for its successful ones. In the United States, there are two publicly traded crypto exchanges: Coinbase and Bakkt. Coinbase is a major Trump supporter, while the Trump family have been reportedly negotiating to acquire Bakkt—partially owned by Trump ally and Small Business Administration director Kelly Loeffler—for their own crypto portfolio. Yet the industry is at the peak of its political influence.

加密货币行业与iPhone一样古老，但是尽管燃烧了数千亿美元的真实美元，但它几乎没有完成，以支撑一项技术仍然缺乏被引入法定货币的基本原理。通过多个气泡，加密货币未能超越使赌场运行的铁杆信徒和零售投机者的基础扩展。它比共同的繁荣更加心痛。与成功的公司相比，它以欺诈性公司越来越多的名单而闻名。在美国，有两个公开交易的加密交易所：Coinbase和Bakkt。 Coinbase是特朗普的主要支持者，而据报道，特朗普家族正在谈判获得Bakkt（由特朗普盟友和小型企业管理局局部占有的Bakkt，供他们自己的加密货币组合。然而，该行业正处于其政治影响力的顶峰。

Crypto has been successful in two areas: as a tool for crime—money-laundering, sanctions evasion, investment scams—and in its conquest of the American political scene. The two achievements seem deeply intertwined. In the 2024 political campaign cycle, crypto was the biggest donor by industry, raising more than $197 million. The crypto industry won nearly every race they got behind, and some of its leaders later claimed responsibility for helping to return Representative Jamaal Bowman, Representative Katie Porter, and Senator Sherrod Brown, all progressive Democrats, to the private sector.

加密在两个领域都取得了成功：作为犯罪的工具，包括不罚款，逃避制裁，投资骗局 - 以及征服美国政治舞台。这两个成就似乎深深地交织在一起。在2024年的政治竞选周期中，加密货币是行业最大的捐助者，筹集了超过1.7亿美元。加密货币行业几乎赢得了他们落后的每场比赛，其中一些领导人随后声称有助于返回代表贾马尔·鲍曼（Jamaal Bowman），代表凯蒂·波特（Katie Porter）和参议员谢罗德·布朗（Sherrod Brown），所有进步民主党人都将其归还给私营部门。

Crypto supporters often claim that we are on the brink of a financial revolution—if only the government would get out of the way and allow these heroic financial innovators to do their thing. Now the industry will get its chance. With both houses of Congress under Republican control and an orange-pilled Trump in the White House, crypto is on the verge of getting the bespoke regulatory and legal regime it’s long demanded. Congress is now considering

加密支持者经常声称我们处于金融革命的边缘，如果政府只能摆脱困境，并允许这些英勇的金融创新者做自己的事情。现在，该行业将获得机会。在共和党控制下的两院国会和白宫的橙色填充特朗普的情况下，加密货币即将获得定制的监管和法律制度。国会正在考虑