Newsletter: As Trump’s web of crypto projects gets tangled up in itself, a regulator warns of “regulatory Jenga” in the crypto sector that echoes the 2008 financial crisis
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@molly0xfff I like the idea of Regulatory Jenga -- everything's tangled and unbalanced and at some point someone'll notice you can just knock the tower down and light it on fire because it's just a bunch of flammable blocks.
@molly0xfff
That sounds good. I hope the whole crypto fad falls apart.
Magic Eden is likely scrambling to salvage what has become an embarrassing public relations disaster as the Trump sons have sent cease-and-desist letters over their and the $TRUMP memecoins’ use of the Trump brand.
![After I broke the news that Magic Eden and the $TRUMP memecoin project would be announcing an “Official $TRUMP Wallet by President Trump”, things exploded into chaos — and not just because the President of the United States continues to demolish his own records for self-dealing.
Magic Eden pushed out their announcement quickly after I published my story, only for all three of the Trump sons to repudiate the project within hours. “I run [the Trump Organization] and I know nothing about this project!” tweeted Eric Trump. Donald Trump Jr. made a similar post, reiterating that the World Liberty Financial project was working on their own version of a Trump wallet. Even Barron Trump, who is normally fairly absent from social media, posted that “our family has zero involvement with this wallet”.
This potential conflict with the World Liberty Financial project, which is more closely affiliated with the Trump sons, was something I noted in my original post. I wrote that there seemed to me to be “questions as to whether these various Trump-affiliated crypto projects, some of which are managed by separate entities, might wind up competing with one another.” Evidently such questions never even occurred to the Magic Eden team or the $TRUMP memecoin team while they were working on this announcement, because they seemed caught completely off guard.](/proxy/post_attachment/512908/6f77a9dc93.png "After I broke the news that Magic Eden and the $TRUMP memecoin project would be announcing an “Official $TRUMP Wallet by President Trump”, things exploded into chaos — and not just because the President of the United States continues to demolish his own records for self-dealing.
Magic Eden pushed out their announcement quickly after I published my story, only for all three of the Trump sons to repudiate the project within hours. “I run [the Trump Organization] and I know nothing about this project!” tweeted Eric Trump. Donald Trump Jr. made a similar post, reiterating that the World Liberty Financial project was working on their own version of a Trump wallet. Even Barron Trump, who is normally fairly absent from social media, posted that “our family has zero involvement with this wallet”.
This potential conflict with the World Liberty Financial project, which is more closely affiliated with the Trump sons, was something I noted in my original post. I wrote that there seemed to me to be “questions as to whether these various Trump-affiliated crypto projects, some of which are managed by separate entities, might wind up competing with one another.” Evidently such questions never even occurred to the Magic Eden team or the $TRUMP memecoin team while they were working on this announcement, because they seemed caught completely off guard.")
Trump’s memecoin dinner happened on May 22, though the people who spent millions of dollars on $TRUMP memecoins to secure invitations were treated to mediocre food and only a brief appearance by the president.
Re Trump remaining "uncharacteristically quiet", he's probably too busy fighting with his ex-"First Buddy" Musk at the moment.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/05/trump-elon-musk-fallout
Edited 8d ago
@molly0xfff was it better than the cold McDonald's he served at the White House?
The crypto industry is trying to ram through the CLARITY Act, a flawed market structure bill that reads like it was written by industry lobbyists.
@molly0xfff How sad! We should all send thoughts and prayers.
@molly0xfff I don’t understand why anyone who deals with Trump over any matter at all think that THIS time will be the time that he upholds his end of the bargain. I suppose narcissistic sociopaths attract other narcissistic sociopaths so each thinks they’re so much smarter than all the dummies who came before them and got shafted by him.
That is too funny...
They got what they deserved for supporting that 💩
SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw is warning of “regulatory Jenga” that “feels all too familiar to those of who have lived through 2008”.
![She then went on to outline the agency’s recent actions to push out experienced staff, statements that “dilute or effectively rescind” securities laws, failures to enforce securities laws, and choices to ignore significant risks in crypto and other portions of the market. She concludes: “This is a dangerous game. We are pulling apart our own regulatory foundation – block by block, case by case, and rule by rule. It feels all too familiar to those of who have lived through 2008.”27
Crenshaw’s concerns certainly haven’t slowed down the agency any, though. After submitting a joint filing quickly after Trump’s inauguration to stay the ongoing enforcement case against Binance [I77], the SEC has now submitted a joint stipulation to dismiss the case with prejudice.28 The SEC says they have decided as an “exercise of its discretion and as a policy matter” to dismiss the case, which features a written statement from a Binance Chief Compliance Officer that “we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro” and evidence that Binance was not just violating securities laws pertaining to registration but was also committing fraud. A week before the dismissal, Binance listed World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin for trading on their platform. Trump owns a 60% stake in World Liberty, and receives a substantial share of token and protocol revenues. The stablecoin has also been used to facilitate a $2 billion investment from the Emirati MGX investment firm into](/proxy/post_attachment/512920/6fefb0bda4.png "She then went on to outline the agency’s recent actions to push out experienced staff, statements that “dilute or effectively rescind” securities laws, failures to enforce securities laws, and choices to ignore significant risks in crypto and other portions of the market. She concludes: “This is a dangerous game. We are pulling apart our own regulatory foundation – block by block, case by case, and rule by rule. It feels all too familiar to those of who have lived through 2008.”27
Crenshaw’s concerns certainly haven’t slowed down the agency any, though. After submitting a joint filing quickly after Trump’s inauguration to stay the ongoing enforcement case against Binance [I77], the SEC has now submitted a joint stipulation to dismiss the case with prejudice.28 The SEC says they have decided as an “exercise of its discretion and as a policy matter” to dismiss the case, which features a written statement from a Binance Chief Compliance Officer that “we are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro” and evidence that Binance was not just violating securities laws pertaining to registration but was also committing fraud. A week before the dismissal, Binance listed World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin for trading on their platform. Trump owns a 60% stake in World Liberty, and receives a substantial share of token and protocol revenues. The stablecoin has also been used to facilitate a $2 billion investment from the Emirati MGX investment firm into")
@molly0xfff @dgoldsmith as a nymous Clarity, I find this gross and wrong >:o
All this plus Circle’s IPO, the Department of Labor’s rescission of guidance around crypto in 401(k)s, another crypto kidnapping, fifteen lawsuits against Coinbase, and even more in this recap issue of Citation Needed.
@molly0xfff > “feels all too familiar to those of who have lived through 2008”.
I've been thinking of shorting the crypto market, but it's hard to tell when exactly it's going to go pop. Y'know, same problem as the main characters from The Big Short had.
@molly0xfff Exactly like 2008, a bunch of coked up assholes invented too many acronyms and blew up the economy. Surely it won’t happen a _third_ time!