‘Trump’s grifting tendencies’: how the president’s crypto ties could spur corruption
‘Trump’s grifting tendencies’: how the president’s crypto ties could spur corruption
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With Trump promising the US will be ‘crypto capital of the planet’, experts say the industry’s poised for laxer oversight. With Donald Trump tapping top regulators with cryptocurrency ties and promising to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet”, the controversial and scandal-plagued industry is poised for laxer oversight and faster growth, which ethics watchdogs and ex-prosecutors fear could pose dangers for investors and spur potential criminal abuses.
The president’s pro-crypto stances have come as he wooed crypto companies to ratchet up their campaign contributions to help him win the White House. Although in 2021 Trump called Bitcoin a “scam”, he also announced last fall that he and his sons were helping launch a new crypto business, dubbed World Liberty Financial, they can profit from.
Underscoring his own growing ties to the speculative crypto business, Trump in a stark act of self-enrichment days prior to his inauguration revealed another crypto venture, a personal meme coin dubbed $Trump which drew strong criticism from ethics watchdogs, economists and some industry insiders.
“The Trump meme coin represents the intersection of Trump’s grifting tendencies and his administration’s embrace of cryptocurrencies, along with his dismissive attitude toward government regulation,” said Cornell economics professor Eswar Prasad.
More broadly, Prasad foresees that under Trump “regulatory agencies and top administration officials will contribute legitimacy to crypto assets, notwithstanding the highly speculative nature of these investments and the perils of exposing unsophisticated retail investors to their volatility”.
