CRYPTO PRO & CON
Watch Out for the Con's
CONTENTS
COUNTERING TRUMP CRYPTO SCAM
Liccardo Slams Trump's Crypto 'Rug Pull', Introduces Bill To Prevent Federal Officials Issuing Coins
During remarks on the House floor Thursday, Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-CA) spoke about President Trump's cryptocurrency, $TRUMP.
TRANSCRIPT
Let's make corruption criminal again. Three days before his inauguration, president-elect Trump launched the Trump meme coin. Trump's partners and some investors based in China pumped up the price, making hundreds of millions of dollars with early selling while the price was high. As they sold, though, the price plummeted. They duped more than 800 thousand Americans who collectively lost $2 billion. Welcome to what experts refer to as a rug pull. When I was a prosecutor, there was a different name for this. It was corruption. Foreign interests got the best presidency money can buy. Donald Trump got richer and Americans got screwed. Today I introduced the MEME Act, which prohibits top federal officials from issuing, sponsoring, or promoting financial assets, which has criminal and Civil penalties. Mr. Speaker, our public offices do not belong to us. They belong to the American people, and they're not for sale.
SCARAMUCCI INTERVIEW
Anthony Scaramucci: Trump is unwell
TRANSCRIPT
(Host:) People, Anthony Scaramucci was briefly Donald Trump's White House communications director. He is the founder of Skybridge Capital and the cohost of a great podcast, "The rest is politics USA" with Kathy K. His book, "The Little Book of Bitcoin, What you need to know that Wall Street has already figured out," is out now. ...
BENEFITS OF CRYPTOCURRENCY
So make the case for Bitcoin. ... I'm very scared of it. I wouldn't go near it. But you say it's portable, it's valuable, it's incorruptible, and it's good for the unbanked. Why?
(A.S.:) Well, for all of those reasons that you just said, but at the end of the day, what was created about 16 years ago is a decentralized ledger. And so, if you think of your bank, your bank is basically a spreadsheet. Your assets are on one side of the bank and my assets are on the other. Let's say that you work for an auto dealership and I wanted to buy a car. We're just moving digits from my account over to your account and then you deliver me the car. So when you stop and think about a transfer of value, it's really a technology between us, money is effectively a technology that we're using so that we don't have to barter with each other. And so these computer programmers, such as Satashi Nakamoto, figured out a way to create this immutable, unbreakable system that's quite scarce. There's only 21 million of these {bitcoin} tokens on the internet. They made the case that, if this proliferated, this would be a very hard asset. The Bank of England couldn't make any more of it. The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States couldn't make any more of it. And so it had a little bit of an inflation hedge {that's a false assumption IMO}. What we're saying here at Sky Bridge and what I wrote in the book is that this is a form of digital gold. Now, it may not be people of your or my demography, but younger people ... in their early 30s have accepted a digital world and they recognize that they can use this decentralized, fully transparent spreadsheet as a way to transfer value between each other. And the reason why I think it's good for the unbanked is that you don't need a bank account to do it. I had some officials here in this office from the government of El Salvador during the UN General Assembly meetings in September of last year, and they said that wallet to wallet transfers between their expatriates that live here in the United States to their moms and dads in El Salvador, if they could do it over the Bitcoin network versus having to pay a Western Union or some other wire service, they could save over $400 million a year. And so this is going to be part of our future. This is sort of like an operating software or value transfer, value transactions, and it's cheaper. The same way you and I are doing this phone call, or this Zoom call, and it's virtually costless, but if we did something like this 40 years ago, probably couldn't have a television connected to it, but we could have a phone call together. It would have cost us. The telephone company was charging us per minute 40 years ago. Well, the banks are still thinking like that. They charge us per transaction or if you have low amounts of money at the bank, at least here in the United States, they charge you a monthly service fee to have that money. And that's why millions of Americans are unbanked. But Bitcoin provides them this other alternative. It's sort of a way to transact without having to use the third parties of the banking system.
TRUMP IS UNWELL
... (Host) Can we move on to what's gonna be a pretty seismic day in British politics tomorrow when our Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, goes to visit Donald Trump at the White House? How should he play it, Anthony?
(A.S.:) ... Everyone doesn't wanna say this 'cause he's the leader of the free world, but Trump has obviously got something wrong with him. I don't know if you saw that artificially intelligent Trump Gaza Video that he posted on his own Truth Social Network. Anybody looks at that, whether you're a clinical profiler for MI6 or the CIA, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that something's wrong with Trump. It's like if someone in British football broke their leg and the bone was sticking out. You don't have to be an orthopedic surgeon to know that there's a broken bone. So I would say, to cue Starmer, the guy is unwell and he's surrounded by willing sycophants that want to pretend that he's not unwell. And you'll do yourself and your country a service if you are polite to him and you give him some gratuitous flattering, but you try to stay away from him, if you can. Don't get too close to his orbit, because he'll end up eating you. He harms everybody in his path. He's not well liked. He's not well liked by his family members, not well liked by his staff, but they're there because he's a powerful person. Well, I would just tell Keir Starmer stay away from him, because he's a dangerous guy. In a couple of years, he'll burn himself out. The United Kingdom will exist, and Donald Trump will be in our rearview mirror. ... I did work for him and I did like him. ... I have to own the mistakes that I've made in my life. But what I didn't see in him, which he's now shown to the world, is this: he's in singular service for himself and the attention that he's getting and the money that he can potentially make. He's not in service of the world. He doesn't think about himself as the leader of the free world the way I think you or I or other people would like to think about that role and that responsibility. ... But then again, there's shortcomings in the Democratic Party, because of the way they handled themselves with this improper intergenerational transfer of power in their party. They could have beaten Donald Trump. Remember, he only won by 1 and 1/2 percent of the votes. And that was with the {Democratic} party in full disarray with the president. Unfortunately, that was a cognitive sunsetting. And then forced Vice President Harris into the race 107 days {before the election}. ...
SOME VIDEOS
Trump Fan LOSES EVERYTHING After Investing in Trump’s CRYPTO SCAM (3 days ago)
Trump’s Crypto Scam KEEPS GETTING WORSE (2 weeks ago)
Trump Trashes Government Ethics Rules, Launches Scam Crypto Coin, Woos Tech Oligarchs: A Closer Look (1 month ago)
Trump crypto coin is really bad (4 months ago)
TRUMP’S CRYPTO SCAM EXPLAINED (4 months ago)
TRANSCRIPT
TRUMP'S SCHEME. On October 15th, 2024, a new cryptocurrency called World Liberty Financial was launched. This crypto project is special because it's closely associated with former president and current presidential hopeful Donald Trump. This is the first time in U.S. history that a presidential candidate has launched their own cryptocurrency. World Liberty Financial aimed to sell 20 Billion tokens at 1.5 cents each. This would raise $300 million in total. The token sale has failed to meet this ambitious target. As of the time of recording this video, World Liberty has sold 922 million tokens, raising a little under $14 million. In this video, we'll take a deep dive into Trump's cryptocurrency project and what this could mean for the crypto industry going forward.
BEFORE, TRUMP SAID CRYPTO IS A SCAM. If you've been following Donald Trump over the past few years, the fact that he's now promoting a cryptocurrency might come as a bit of a surprise. In the past, he's been openly skeptical of digital currencies, as late as 2021 Trump called Bitcoin a scam. "My opinion is that for the currency of this world, it'd be the dollar. And I don't think we should have all of the bitcoins of the world out there. I think they should regulate them very, very high. But the currency should be the dollar. And when you have things like that out there, Stuart, what happens is you really lose something that takes the edge off of the dollar, the importance of the dollar. Bitcoin just seems like a scam. I don't like it, because it's another currency competing against the dollar." Just three years later, Trump is headlining at a Bitcoin conference and launching his own cryptocurrency.
CHANGE OF MIND. So what explains the change of heart? The answer is simple. Trump recently realized that by raising crypto, he has the opportunity to raise a lot of money both for himself personally and for his presidential campaign. Shortly after his election, Joe Biden appointed Gary Gensler to be the chairman of the SEC. Gensler has presided over a regulatory crackdown against many crypto companies. Since Gensler took over the Commission, he has brought litigation against the crypto exchanges Coinbase, Night Cracking and many others. Gensler wants most cryptocurrencies to be classified as securities. This litigation is still working its way through the courts, but if the SEC wins, most cryptocurrencies will effectively be banned in the United States. The regulatory burden of registering as a security would be insurmountable for the vast majority of crypto projects. Gary Gensler's SEC poses an existential threat to many crypto-related businesses. It's thus entirely unsurprising that most crypto entrepreneurs have a strong dislike for Mr. Gensler. In the 2024 election campaign, Trump has promised to fire Gensler and in the SEC crackdown against crypto, this has made Trump the favorite among crypto bros. Once Trump established himself as a pro-crypto candidate, the donations started pouring in. The Trump campaign and pro Trump political action committees have raised tens of millions of dollars from crypto bros. The donors include Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the billionaire founders of the crypto-focused venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, as well as the Winklevoss twins, who own the crypto trading platform Gemini. Now that Trump has established himself as a pro-crypto candidate, he might as well also start making money with his own crypto projects. In late 2023 he launched so-called digital trading cards. These are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) which have cartoon pictures of Trump. Trump supporters can buy the cards for $99 each. According to regulatory filings Trump has made between 100,000 and $1 million by selling NFTS.
WLF, THE NEW SCAM. And this brings us to Trump's latest crypto endeavor, World Liberty Financial. Right off the bat, it's important to note that Trump didn't actually found World Liberty Financial. On the website, Trump is listed as chief crypto advocate. His three sons are all listed as ambassadors. Chief crypto advocate and ambassador appear to be unofficial titles. The website gives a disclosure saying that neither Donald Trump nor any of his family members are directors, founders, or employees of World Liberty Financial. Donald Trump may be eligible to receive 22.5 billion tokens of this new cryptocurrency, as well as significant fees. Trump didn't actually create World Liberty Financial. World Liberty Financial is just paying Trump to help promote their new cryptocurrency. There are 5 co-founders: Chase Herro, Zach Folkman, Steven Witkoff and his two sons, Zak and Alex Witkoff. Steven Witkoff is a New York real estate mogul. He does not appear to have any experience in cryptocurrencies. Perhaps the two more interesting co-founders are Chase Herro and Zak Folkman.
HERRO SCAMMER. Chase Herro started his first business venture in high school. He was a merchant of controlled substances. He was also a heavy user of the substances he sold. At the age of 18, he was arrested and ultimately spent three years in prison. He eventually started some kind of e-commerce business. In or around 2020, he founded a company called Subify. Subify helps content creators make their own personalized subscription platforms, where they can post paywall videos for their fans. Logan Paul is one of the influencers who uses it. In the mid to late 2010s Chase Herro apparently got involved trading cryptocurrencies at a private crypto conference in 2018. He claimed to have made tens of millions of dollars of profits trading Bitcoin. These claims are impossible to verify.
FOLKMAN'S CREDS. The second co-founder of World Liberty Financial is a man named Zak Folkman. Mr. Folkman used to go by the alias Zak Bauer. In or around 2010, he founded a company called Date Hotter Girls LLC. This was a paid coaching service which taught men how to approach women in public. Why Donald Trump wants to associate himself with these people just weeks before the election is very difficult to understand.
WHAT'S WLF? So what exactly is World Liberty Financial? On September 16th, Trump hosted a Twitter Spaces event along with his children and co-founders. The event lasted for about two hours, but former President Trump was only there for the first half hour. Trump himself didn't give many details about the project. It is unclear if he's even familiar with the details of the project. He just talked about crypto in general and said that if reelected he would decrease regulation of the crypto industry. After he left, his sons and the co-founders talked about World Liberty Financial for about an hour and a half. We listened to the entire thing so that you don't have to. The co-founders mostly spoke in generalities. They made vague statements about how they want to revolutionize the financial system. They gave remarkably few details about what their new cryptocurrency would actually do or how it would work.
WLF GOLD PAPER. Most new cryptocurrencies release a so-called white paper, explaining how the coin works. World Liberty published what they call a gold paper.... The gold paper is only 13 pages long and notably light on details. The gold paper states that they plan to build a financial protocol which will provide users with information and access to 3rd-party DeFi (Decentralized Finance) applications, including liquidity pools, which enable supplying stable coins to generate yields. We're borrowing funds using non-security digital assets as collateral. If you look at this sentence carefully, you'll see that they misspelled the word generate. Such a blatant typo doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Specifically, World Liberty is trying to get connected to a separate DeFi protocol called A. This will have to be approved by ... a well established DeFi protocol, which allows traders to borrow and lend to each other using cryptocurrencies as collateral.
INTENT. It appears that World Already Financial is trying to make a white label version of A. In other words, they're trying to create something that already exists. To reiterate, World Liberty is not yet connected to A. As of today, World Liberty Financial does absolutely nothing. This whole thing appears to be a giant marketing gimmick designed to monetize Trump's name. While Trump didn't create the project, he and his family are reported to receive 75% of the protocol's revenue. This was a quick and easy way for Trump to earn millions of dollars. Despite Trump's name recognition, the World Liberty cryptocurrency has failed to garner significant interest from the crypto community. This is likely due to its lack of utility. They plan to raise $300 million with their initial coin offering. As of the time of recording this video, they have raised approximately $14 million, or less than 5% of their target. Alright guys, that wraps it up for this video. What do you think about World Liberty Financial?
RFK JR SUPPORTS CRYPTO
I assume that RFK Jr supports it because of the benefits it can bring to people who can’t afford banks. Hopefully, however, he’s aware of the scams that cryptocurrency is prone to and maybe he knows how to prevent most scams. I wrote about other dangers of cryptocurrency in early December. See TRUMP’S CRYPTOCURRENCY SCAM.
COMMENTS UNDER LAST VIDEO.
@Greg07623: It was a scam until someone told him he could grift off of it.
@etuitivemillionaire: He was against it until they offered him 70% of the profits
@benjaminmatheny6683: I think it's real important that you missed the fact that WLF is *non-transferable*. Meaning you can't trade it. So it has zero utility as even a fiat/unbacked currency.
@12time12: Imagine any other politician pulling a crypto scam, it’d be over for them. This timeline sucks.
@brians3504: "This is the first time in US history that a presidential candidate has launched their own cryptocurrency" should never be a statement. This is a sad and wild disaster.
@SchlangeVonEden: Awesome idea. Since only his fans would buy them, no one gets scammed who doesn't deserve it for once.
@IntegralKing: "we listened to it so you wouldn't have to" - thank you for your sacrifice, WSM
@Ganerrr: You can immediately rule out a crypto on being the money/gold of the future based on if it has an advertising budget.
@Seth6097: “merchant of controlled substances” 😂😂
@methos1999: It kind of shocks me it took him this long to connect his grift with the crypto grift.
@DoctorBiobrain: Yeah, real billionaires always license themselves out like retired boxers rather than run real businesses. 👍