6 ms·
A sitting US president launched two memecoins that wiped out $4.3B+
- toomuchtodo 9mo agohttps://archive.today/G02Gy https://archive.today/G02Gy
- cushpush 9mo agoBeing upset that meme coins underwent a boom and bust is like getting angry at fire for being hot.
- hightrix 9mo agoThe difference here is that this is the president doing this rug pull. Using his power to make billions is not exactly enshrined in the constitution.
- toomuchtodo 9mo agoThis is who he is. This is who they voted for. The electorate voted for Congressional representation that does not hold him accountable. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
- palmotea 9mo ago> The difference here is that this is the president doing this rug pull. Cryptocurrency has always been a scam of no real utility for honest actors (compared to alternatives). > Using his power to make billions is not exactly enshrined in the constitution. Not exactly. Trump is dishonest and greedy, and doesn't care about a lot of appearances that prior presidents cared a lot about. In this case, he's not "using his power to make billions," he's actually not refraining from making billions because he has power. I'm pretty sure Obama and Biden could have made money from a meme-coin, if they were so inclined. But if they even thought about it at all, they would have rejected the idea because it would look bad, hurt the office, etc. Trump doesn't care about those things.
- solumunus 9mo agoAgain, completely irrelevant.
- smt88 9mo agoIt's very obvious that the anger is about POTUS using his office for rug-pulls, not that rug-pulls are happening in the first place
- AnimalMuppet 9mo agoPor que no los dos? I can be angry about memecoin rug-pulls as a general scam, and I can be angry that the sitting US president is running shady scams.
- tadfisher 9mo agoThe problem with this statement is the part of the title that it completely ignores. More precisely, the first part.
- nozzlegear 9mo agoSurely you're taking the piss and can recognize that what's unique about this story is the fact that a sitting US president pushed the meme coins? They made Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust, but Trump is raking in money off his crypto pushes, shady dealings, and business holdings. Edit: Carter put his farm into a blind trust, he didn't sell it.
- solumunus 9mo agoThat’s what we’re upset about ay?
- simonw 9mo agoJimmy Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- ge96 9mo agoMission accomplished
- mentalfist 9mo agoMemecoins? More like bribe/money laundering special vehicles
- sirshmooey 9mo agoHis stablecoin, USD1, is his primary instrument for laundering. It now constitutes roughly 1/3 of his entire net worth. Attached article gives a great breakdown. https://archive.is/4ieKD https://archive.is/4ieKD
- xrd 9mo agoWow, that article makes you want to vomit.
- insane_dreamer 9mo agoAnd that article is from National Review, a conservative magazine, not the Atlantic or some leftist paper.
- thrance 9mo agoHe mostly stole it from his idiotic voter base, so it's a net positive in my book.
- dantillberg 9mo agoThat's what I thought as well at first, but I've come to think that is just the cover story. While some of his base likely did buy in, I expect that _most_ of the inflows were from individuals or groups looking to influence the administration (aka bribes).
- thrance 9mo agoYet he didn't feel the need to hide the plane he received from the Saudis, or the gold bars he got from tech companies. Hell, he even bragged about those. Because there's no one able and willing to stop his naked corruption, he has zero reason to hide it. Shamelessness is his signature, after all. No, his coins were organically fed by people who believe his lies.
- autoexec 9mo agoHe doesn't have any shame, but some of the people bribing him may not want to be so public about that. His bribecoins gave them the ability to funnel money without having to worry about any fallout (legal or reputational).
- lavezzi 9mo ago> Yet he didn't feel the need to hide the plane he received from the Saudis, or the gold bars he got from tech companies. You are willfully obtuse if you believe these are equivocal examples. And not that it matters, but the plane in question was 'gifted' from the Qatari royal family, not 'the Saudis'.
- cheema33 9mo ago> He mostly stole it from his idiotic voter base, so it's a net positive in my book. Some of it was done to receive bribes in exchange of favors from the govt. We all paid for that shit.
- t1234s 9mo agoIsn't all memecoin just a pump and dump anyways? I always thought of it as an alternative to lottery tickets or slot machines.
- dhosek 9mo agoMore an alternative to pigeon drop and spanish prisoner
- candiddevmike 9mo agoI wish someone could help me understand why GenZ predominantly doesn't get this after they keep getting burned by get rich quick schemes. How did we raise a generation of rubes?
- chucksta 9mo agoI dont know, I thought no child was supposed to be left behind
- t1234s 9mo agoI guess compared to slot machines or lottery tickets (which are instant loss if not a win) if you lose initially on memecoin there is a shred of a chance it rebounds and you can make some of it back. Maybe they see this as a "better" vice to have with excess income.
- xanthor 9mo agoIt’s rational if you cognize that being the beneficiary of a long shot scheme or gamble is the only viable path to economic security for most, given the overall trajectory of the economy. Simply plot the median wage in terms of gold or any other hard commodity (as opposed to the gamed CPI metric).
- rchaud 9mo agoDistrust of mianstream media and institutions and high trust in streamers, youtubers and podcasters who aren't regulated by the FCC or any sort of editorial guidelines and happily parrot conspiracies, fringe economic theories, pump shitcoins, promote BetterHelp "therapy" and random dropship brand supplements.
- arghandugh 9mo ago[dead]
- MBCook 9mo agoIt was nice having laws while they lasted.
- foxyv 9mo agoIn the US, laws were only for the affluent, male, white class anyways. Richard Rothstein wrote a great book about it called "Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_of_Law It's just that the middle class is no longer going to be the "In" group.
- MBCook 9mo agoOh come on. Yeah the law has never been applied equally. Terribly so. That has nothing to do with the specific thing I’m obviously saying.
- foxyv 9mo agoThe unspecified, specific thing.
- MBCook 9mo agoIt’s an article about the president making memecoins and doing rug pulls to enrich himself. That could also easily be used as a method to transfer very large bribes. It’s very clearly a comment on the lack of norms or enforcement of rules (emoluments clause, among MANY others) on the presidency.
- foxyv 9mo agoSo, my comment was directly relevant afterall.
- xrd 9mo agoNo one will tell me who this is about. The title doesn't say. But I bet it was Biden!
- cheema33 9mo agoThat is nothing! Did you know that Obama wore a tan suit one day as the US president? That's the real scandal!
- whateveracct 9mo agoDon't forget about his latte!
- Hikikomori 9mo agoHe also used treasonous condiments.
- danans 9mo agoIt's probably difficult to find out (but someone here could probably analyze the blockchain), but it would be interesting to know the mean and median stake of the investors who got wiped out. If the mean is large, it's mostly an off-the-books bribery scheme. If the average stake is small, it's mostly a pump-and-dump con of regular people. But it was probably just a gambling scheme with just one big bet, where as ever, the house always wins.
- foxyv 9mo agoIt can be both. Use the "Contributions" from "Donors" to make it appear that the coin is going to the moon and then dump it once enough credulous victims buy into the scam. Reward the donors with their appropriate tit-for-tat and then pocket it all.
- danans 9mo ago> It can be both. Use the "Contributions" from "Donors" to make it appear that the coin is going to the moon and then dump it once enough credulous victims buy into the scam. Sure, and cynically, just like in traditional casino gambling, the wipe-out could be viewed as the price of "entertainment". If there is no class action lawsuit, then we know that the people who got wiped out thought the price was worth whatever they got for it, whether favors or fun.
- foxyv 9mo agoIt's probably just too early for the class actions. There are a couple suits against Bannon and Trump for the "Let's go Brandon" coin.
- mikrotikker 9mo agoThose contributions are by the way, the direct bribe. Just send confirmation of your wallet and when Trump pulls the rug the bribe is paid and the pardon (or whatever) is done.
- 9mo ago
- GoogooGagaMode 9mo ago[dead]
- JKCalhoun 9mo ago"Crypto president my ass." I don't know, it seems like this is exactly crypto.
- soramimo 9mo agoYep, judging a tree by its fruit.
- whateveracct 9mo ago"Wiped out" - that money went somewhere..
- tim333 9mo agoYeah as a technical matter $4.3bn wiped out is kind of wrong. If I issue a billion iffy coins, sell one for a dollar and then it goes to zero that's more one dollar wiped than the theoretical billion. I'd say this is $600m transferred from investors to insiders. An interesting question is how much of that $600m was degen gamblers and how much was bribes.
- tsoukase 9mo agoWelcome to the Corrupt State situation. This is how developing, poor and struggling nations function. I hope it will not last long because the US citizens don't deserve it (although the same is said for every other nation)
- bubblewand 9mo agoWe’re probably settling into what they call a “hybrid regime”. We’ll likely wobble between periods of relative stability, with about the amount of liberty and corruption we’re used to at the federal level, and more-authoritarian high-corruption periods like this one. Breaking out of the cycle, I rate less likely than a full collapse into authoritarianism. I just don’t see a viable path to the kinds of reforms we’d need. And it’ll get harder the longer this goes on, as the rot of corruption affects state capacity, industrial capacity, and drives even more entrenched local corruption than we already deal with. Plus we’ve got multiple debt and cost crises about to slam into us full-force, over the next 1-3 decades. But for now: hybrid regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime
- insane_dreamer 9mo agoThe irony of the president coming to office to "drain the swamp" becomes the easily most corrupt, in plain sight, president in US history.
- Smoosh 9mo agoThe great thing about populist slogans like “drain the swamp” is that they don’t specify what exactly will be done and how, so they are highly malleable.
- krapp 9mo agoWhat were we supposed to do, vote for a woman?
- terflumble 9mo agoIf it makes anyone feel better even after he and his family have stolen as much as they can possible steal, a fortune more than capable of supporting generational wealth, they'll have already squandered nearly all of it and be back on TV trying to turn the family name into fifteen dollars for autographed socks manufactured in a country they despise or a donation from voters they also despise.
- cindyllm 9mo ago[dead]