The crypto super PACs have spent a combined $1.5 million on two special elections in deeply red districts in Florida, where Republicans have been panicking about being outspent by Democrats. Musk’s America PAC also dropped some cash to help out Trump’s picks.
Other input has come from the likes of Lee Reiners, who writes “I must admit that whole endeavor seems performative and intended to justify a predetermined outcome.”
The SEC has requested input to write essentially entirely new rules for the crypto industry, and the industry has been only too happy to oblige.
And Trump’s WLFI is looking to launch a stablecoin. Though Trump has described central bank-controlled stablecoins as “a dangerous threat to freedom”, he seems to have no qualms with a president-controlled token.
Trump Media execs have filed paperwork for a SPAC to target the crypto industry, reasoning that it’s strategic because of Trump’s “unprecedented steps to integrate digital assets into the national financial strategy” that were “aimed at benefiting the digital assets industry”.
In order to close the deal, Crypto.com had to resurrect $7 billion in CRO tokens that were burned in 2021. This was decided by a “vote” in which Crypto.com validators controlled more than 70% of the voting power — nearly all other CRO holders opposed.
Trump is seeking to expand his personal crypto footprint, and his Trump Media company is looking to partner with Crypto.com to launch ETPs. The Singapore-headquartered company is an odd choice of partner for a plan with a “Made in America focus”.
Lead crypto adviser Bo Hines is already hard at work getting “a lot of high IQ people” to work on “countless ideas” for how the US can add more bitcoin to its reserve while remaining technically “budget neutral”.
Newsletter: As the US government lays a very favorable groundwork for the crypto industry, Trump positions himself for maximum personal profits. Meanwhile crypto companies write their own rules, and an adviser mulls swapping US gold reserves for bitcoin.
It's not clear that BitBoy even knows he's been sued yet; he was arrested two days ago after sending threatening emails to the judge in a DIFFERENT defamation case he's facing from his former business partners after he publicly accused them of various crimes
Amusingly, BitBoy once tried to file a defamation lawsuit of his own against a YouTuber who called him a "shady dirtbag"
He dropped the suit almost immediately after the YouTuber raised over $200,000 for his defense in a matter of days, and Armstrong admitted he didn't know lawsuits were public
BitBoy also suggested that O'Leary was trying to have him killed, and claimed he'd swatted him. Shortly after, he posted O'Leary's cell phone number and encouraged his followers to "call a real life murderer"
Quote from man sued: "What are you gonna do, sue me?"
Kevin O'Leary has sued crypto personality Ben Armstrong (aka "BitBoy Crypto") for repeatedly claiming O'Leary murdered two people
(O'Leary and his wife were indeed involved in a boating collision that killed two people in 2019; O'Leary states in the lawsuit that it was his wife driving the boat, and she was acquitted of any charges)
Complaint: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69798755/1/oleary-v-armstrong/
So far, I have been delving into the #Web3 and #crypto debate only superficially, as the very few notions I got led me to abhor any kind of technology related to the #blockchain.
Since I started my new job at @dweb, though, I am finding myself revisiting my position by deepening my knowledge on the topic. I am mostly drawing the same conclusions—crypto is terrible—yet I am glad I am learning more also on what I am very critical about.
I am particularly thankful to @mai for writing this article, which I believe is a great starting point to develop an informed opinion.
Above all, as mai points out, nothing is all-bad, and there are for sure ideas and practices that can be learned (as cautionary tales in the worst case scenarios) even from problematic technologies, communities, and/or founders.
(Don’t forget that $50 million of those contributions appeared to be blatantly illegal, although Trump is already hard at work making the Federal Elections Commission even less effective than it previously was.)
https://www.citationneeded.news/coinbase-campaign-finance-violation/
Coinbase says that the SEC has agreed to drop the enforcement case against the company. It only cost them $75 million in political contributions.
Sadly, the Congressional majority appears far more eager to spend its political capital making bold statements about debanking only when it applies to crypto billionaires, while dismantling the very agencies best positioned to help debanking victims.
Meanwhile, the agency most involved in handling debanking is being dismantled, to cheers from the crypto industry. “Debanking” is a crypto rallying cry only so far as it supports their deregulatory agenda, dropped the second it might result in actual consumer protections.
Broadly: despite bipartisan agreement that discriminatory debanking happens to some groups and individuals, there is no agreement about who those people are, or what to do about it.
But the industry’s bold claims that “Operation Choke Point 2.0 is real” are hyperbole intended to mislead. Perhaps they need more time to acquire the proof they claim exists. Perhaps they will just continue to claim it exists, and hope no one notices they haven’t produced it.
We are in a situation where reasonable people can look at the same set of documents and some will conclude that the regulators are simply doing their jobs, while others conclude that regulators are improperly pressuring banks to not provide services to those customers at all.
So: is this regulatory oversight, or overreach?
There were some conversations with banks about offering depository accounts to crypto companies, which I focused on in particular as this is the root of the industry’s claims.
However, there is no shortage of extremely concerning replies from banks to these questions about the banks’ own planned crypto offerings and partnerships with crypto companies, suggesting the FDIC was more than justified in making these inquiries. Just a few highlights:
