Morning!

Crypto, as we all know, is a have for drug dealers and scammers. Think of the people you know who work in crypto and ask yourself: Do I trust their judgement?

Trump used to say the same thing. Now he’s one of the world’s largest crypto dealers through his company, World Liberty Financial, which is not only an unethical mess, it’s also benefited hugely from his position as the world’s chief crypto policymaker.

That’s the crux of this morning’s front page story in the New York Times. Let’s read it 👇🏻

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The firm, which is owned by a Trump family corporate identity, has “erased centuries-old presidential norms, eviscerating the boundary between private enterprise and government policy in a manner without precedent in modern American history.”

The Times’ examination of World Liberty’s rapid ascent highlights a range of conflicts of interest so broad they need bullet-points:

1. The company has directly benefited from Mr. Trump’s official actions, “such as his announcement of a federal crypto stockpile that would include a digital currency the firm has invested in.”

2. World Liberty has sold its cryptocurrency to investors abroad, including in Israel and Hong Kong.

3. Several investors in World Liberty’s coin managed firms that the federal government accused of wrongdoing.

4. World Liberty proposed swapping cryptocurrencies with at least five start-ups, and often used the Trump name to solicit steep payments as part of the deals.
   “Even in an industry with a disreputable history, the deals raised alarm among veteran executives,” the Times reports.

That last point is a “black spot on our industry,” says a crypto boss who turned down World Liberty’s pitch. Anyone who accepted, he said, would “obviously think they’re going to make money because it’s the officially endorsed Trump project.”

A World Liberty spokesman denies that any of these deals constitute a “one-sided payment for services rendered.” Instead he acknowledged that the company has engaged in “mutual investment deals.” Those are about “thoughtful, strategic exchanges between parties who stand to mutually benefit.”

The Times story opens with a description of an approach on behalf of World Liberty Financial selling such a thoughtful, strategic exchange.

ZMoney, huh? It sounds like he should maybe Rot in a Hotter Jail Cell, to me.

Nevertheless the World Liberty spokesman says it would be “false, absurd and dangerous to suggest that investments or partnerships with World Liberty Financial were conducted as some sort of political quid pro quo.”

“Never has an investor or partner requested any political favoritism,” he said. “Nor would we ever entertain such a possibility.”

Is it me, or does this spokesman sound like somebody ready to fight for the Trumps in the court of public opinion and then potentially hand that fight off to people in court? (Not that we respect the court system in this country any longer, I realize. But still.)

And that’s the rub. I’ve been reading tons about corruption under Vladimir Putin recently and it seems to me that Trump has taken a page right out of his book.

Meanwhile a Russian citizen whose Gibraltar-based firm bought $1 million of World Liberty’s coins told the Times in an interview, “Trump wants to make a lot of money in crypto.”

As if you needed clarification there.

Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro, the two guys who have started this venture with Mr. Trump, could not sound more bent. Aside from Mr. Folkman’s company which helped “forlorn men to pick up women”, there’s a history of failed ventures:

On a livestream introducing World Liberty, Donald Trump Jr. “hailed the men as first-class financial minds,” the Times reports. “You could put them in a boardroom at Goldman Sachs, and they’re going to smoke the people in the room,” he said.

I agree. They’re gonna smoke something. And now let’s have the boring and horrific details of all this, shall we?

After the election, Mr. Trump’s firm saw an influx of “investors” from Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. “Federal law prevents foreigners from donating to presidential campaigns or inaugural funds, but World Liberty’s coin sale offered a new, legal way to back Mr. Trump,” the story reports.

It certainly sounds like that’s what happened.

The story reports in-depth on who some of the investors are, including a Chinese billionaire once sued by the Biden administration whose case seems to be going away, now. Then the story gets into the proposed currency swaps offered by World Liberty Financial, which effectively allowed it to take a 20 percent premium from other crypto firms. It’s amusing to hear crypto firms up-in-arms about corruption but here we go:

The World Liberty Financial spokesman says the Times’s reporting contains “fundamental misunderstandings about standard industry practices”, and called the company’s business arrangements “not only common in the blockchain industry but essential for creating lasting economic alignments in business, generally.”

I mean, he would say that, wouldn’t he? But I’ve been reading the story and I’d say it’s pretty good at showing why this whole business is, essentially, corrupt to the core.

Ether’s price spiked 13 percent on the news. Over the previous few months, Trump’s company had bought $240 million worth of Ether, according to Arkham, a crypto data firm. So they made $33 million on a policy announcement. And they’ve since announced a new “stablecoin” after Mr. Trump called on congress to pass legislation governing them.

The firm has, apparently, already secured a billion dollars in commitments from firms around the world to buy its stablecoins. I’m going to start calling them unstablecoins, though, if you don’t mind. For some reason I’m picturing all the murals of Bashar Assad being vandalized in Syria after his ouster. Can you imagine what’s going to happen to Trump’s unstablecoins when he’s done?

I was a finance reporter for a couple of years before I got into covering law enforcement corruption. What I found in finance is that everyone is corrupt, to a certain extent, apart from the working families who trust them with their pensions. Another thing I discovered was that the vast majority of relatively poor, working people don’t care to invest the time to understand finance better. They see a story like this and their eyes glaze over. They shrug their shoulders and they move along.

“Of course Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has founded a company in a field he once called corrupt, and is making policy pronouncements which are adding millions of dollars to that company’s value, to enrich his family personally, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”

That’s how the thinking goes. But I say: We can do something about it. We can call this what it is, which is corruption. We can say we don’t support it. We can read the newspaper and talk about the details with our friends and families and then in 2026 and 2028 we can vote.

Say, is there a story that might cheer me up a bit?

Oh, sure. Read this piece 👇🏻 about how a new cultural ideal for women is ultrathin and cloaked in the language of inclusivity and self-acceptance. I realize it won’t cheer you up one bit, actually. But this kind of thing is so horrific it makes me want to burn down the Internet and I wanted to say so. So, I’ve said so. Sorry.

Thanks for letting me read the newspaper so that you don’t have to.

Matt Davis lives in Manhattan with his wife and kid.

Standard disclaimer: I read the top story in the New York Times every morning so that you don’t have to. If you were forwarded this, you can subscribe here. I’m also doing a five-minute video version of this, each weekday morning at around 9 a.m. (depending on how long it takes me to read the newspaper). If you’d like to follow me on LinkedIn (you can always watch the recording later). If you subscribe to my Youtube channel it’ll also send you a notification when I’m “going live.”