Trump's crypto racket reaches into Americans' wallets
Donald Trump was corrupt in his first term, using his various properties as cut-outs to collect money from foreign governments and businesses seeking favor. The properties also created opportunities to funnel money from the federal government and the GOP coffers into his bank account, forcing both to rent rooms and hold events at Mar-a-Lago and various Trump hotels. But all that is is a pittance compared to what Trump has set up in his second term. His crypto "firm" allows various actors to bribe Trump outside the normal banking system, making it hard to trace payments and hold people accountable.
Earlier this week, the New York Times published a mammoth report on World Liberty Financial, Trump's relatively new cryptocurrency firm, which greases the wheels for a level of corruption beyond anything ever seen in American politics. Crypto hucksters talk about their industry in deliberately confusing terms, so ordinary people tune it out, but it's not complicated. Trump sells digital "coins" online. Buying these coins is a way to write a check to Trump without going through the normal banking system, where federal regulators might interfere. The Times reporters carefully documented who is buying coins to "curry favor" with Trump: foreign governments, business owners who want federal investigations and/or criminal charges to go away and other crypto firms purchasing Trump's endorsement. The latter is no different than Elon Musk writing fat campaign checks to Trump in exchange for a line of Tesla vehicles trotted out on the White House lawn, except with the crypto grift, the money goes straight into Trump's wallet.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to get the larger public interested in Trump selling the presidency for crypto coins (which he will convert to real cash). Trump's corruption is well known, but doesn't seem to hurt him politically. He was convicted of fraud just last year, leading to a half-billion-dollar civil judgment against his company, but he won the election anyway. Many voters seem to believe that, as gross as the corruption is, it doesn't affect them or the price of eggs. In reality, however, Trump's con artistry is a big factor in the larger scammification of the American economy, which hurts everyone, even those of us who think we're smart enough not to fall for get-rich-quick schemes or snake oil cures being hawked from every corner. Trump promised he'd bring manufacturing back to America, but he's just increasing the number of people out there trying to rip you off.
World Liberty Financial's founder, Zachary Folkman, goes by the cringeworthy name "ZMoney" and got his start in a more pedestrian scam: pickup artistry. He founded a company called Date Hotter Girls that offered the usual array of so-called classes on getting laid to men frustrated that women have a legal right to say "no." This background is perfect, however, because pick-up artistry is the distillation of the ethos of MAGA grifting. The con artist promises his audience they're in on the con, and they will work together to cheat someone else. In reality, the mark is the audience. With pick-up artistry, men are told they can learn to trick women into unwanted sex, but more often than not, they're just fooled into spending a lot of money on useless "classes" — unlaid, but poorer. It mirrors how Trump promised his voters he'd make them all rich by screwing over foreign countries, but in reality tariffs will be paid by American consumers. Or how Trump sells his fans crypto coins at sky-high rates, with promises they'll get rich quick, and then collects the check while the value plummets on "investors."
https://www.salon.com/2025/05/02/crypto-racket-reaches-into-americans-wallets/