$Trump Coin: the ultimate grift

Welcome to the Zero Sum Game

Jesus Fucking Christ.

I genuinely don’t know where to start with this bullshit.

But let’s give it a go, because why not? Here’s the basics:

Donald Trump is set to once again be sworn in as US President tomorrow. On Friday evening, at 10pm, he launched a new cryptocurrency.

Nobody was quite sure whether he had been hacked or whether it was genuine. The altcoin rocketed anyway, and then when it was confirmed that big D was indeed backing the shitcoin, it soared so fucking quickly that early adopters generated higher returns than if they had invested the same amount in the S&P 500 back at its inception in 1957 and held to today.

Nvidia, eat your heart out!

This coin is being managed by Trump Organisation affiliate CIC Digital LLC, which is also in charge of various branded merchants. CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, a company formed in Delaware earlier this month, own 80% of the tokens.

Here’s some insanity for you:

Just look at that volume.

Trump posted:

200 millions coins have been issued and 800 million more will be released over the next three years, though these are only locked in for the next three months.

So let’s be clear here.

10% of the total supply (or 50% of circulating supply) is controlled by Trump. The other 10% is in public hands. Roughly half of that was sniped by those in the know (AIM and crypto not being so different really), leaving perhaps 5% of total supply in public hands.

It’s practically perfect. Control the price up and down by letting it run, and then farming new buyers for profits. Make millions in trading fees because Trump is also the liquidity provider.

And every new coin that hits the market is 100% profit.

Trump can of course rugpull at any time, but may go downt he smart play and try to extract maximum value of the entire course of Trump’s Presidency. Allow for a few spikes, and a few dips.

Leak rumours of a strategic Trump reserve. The row back. Then market the coins on the world stage. Then withdraw. And make money the whole way.

Open-faced bribery

But the big thing to understand is that this rise is not retail, and it’s not institutions. Foreign investors can buy the coin, driving up Trump’s personal wealth, completely anonymously.

However, the bigger issue is that Putin or Xi can now funnel cash directly into the pocket of the President of the United States of America.

Or how about these guys?

TikTok CEO Shou Chew is reportedly at Trump’s rally. The app was banned in the US, and the ban has now been lifted. TikTok was expected to sell to a US actor, but perhaps it was cheaper to just buy the President?

If you spent any time at all following the intricacies of the SEC showdown with Ripple, you will know that crypto is neither a stock, nor a commodity, nor cash.

It’s its own unregulated asset class.

Every scam ever run with a stock can now be run through crypto with zero oversight. You want to wash trade, run a Ponzi, link swap, pump and dump, gold brick, boiler room, affinity fraud, shell company, reverse merger scam, pyramid schemes, insider trading fake, exit scam, recovery rooms - just run it through a shitcoin instead of a company and nobody you scam is going to have any legal recourse whatsoever.

If you don’t know what these words mean, learn them.

For example, remember the 2020 announcement of a $765 million loan from the US government to Kodak to manufacture pharmaceutical ingredients - as part of the Trump administration's push to address supply chain vulnerabilities during the pandemic.

This led to a frenzy in Kodak's stock price, which skyrocketed from under $3 to over $60 in just a few days before crashing back down.

There were allegations at the time over Jared Kushner and Steve Munchin’s close ties to the Trump administration combined with massive option trade profit….

But the loan never happened.

And then when ‘spit on that thang’ went mainstream, pumped, then dumped, Trump had an idea - and a shitcoin was born.

And for those thinking this will not happen - maybe remember FTX? Be careful out there.

The Bitcoin Narrative

It took BTC eight years to reach a $72 billion market capitalisation, and $TRUMP managed this in a couple of days.

$TRUMP is worth well over 50% more than Newmont, the world’s largest gold miner.

And yet it’s a meme coin. A shitcoin. It has zero intrinsic value. But $TRUMP coin now hosts a market cap higher than Microstrategy, which owns 450,000 BTC - meaning a shitcoin created two days ago is worth more the BTC company cheerleader.

If $TRUMP hits $2,100, it will overtake Bitcoin and could become the new ‘store of value.’

But of course, there is no value here. They’re all scams.

The bottom line

This is a zero sum game. As I write, Melania Trump - who has wanted to divorce the Duck for as long as memory exists - has launched her own coin, crashing $TRUMP by 40%.

And this is not $GME, which was a trade based on a co-ordinated Reddit-led short squeeze. Short squeezes have happened in the past and will happen again as part of a healthy market when the Patrick Bateman types get a bit too greedy.

This is not healthy.

My guess is Trump will regret this grift (or allowing his son to nick his phone).

But the bottom line is that for every winner, there will be many losers. Have fun, but be aware there are zero fundamentals here.

Just sentiment.

And sentiment can turn at the drop of a knife.