When Donald Trump announced – three days before assuming the presidency of the United States, and followed shortly by Melania Trump – that he was launching a self-named “meme coin” cryptocurrency, many in the crypto industry were quick to express frustration. Ethics experts were also alarmed.Among Trump’s base, however, a similar backlash – smaller, more muted, but similarly anguished – has been taking hold.After a brief bubble as speculators raced to buy them, both Trump coins have mostly plummeted in value. Within the online Maga community – which has a certain degree of overlap with crypto enthusiasts – some feel betrayed by the president’s embrace of what some conservatives view as little better than a penny-stock pump-and-dump scam.Trump, who in 2021 said bitcoin “seems like a scam”, has since flipped on the issue. He was widely expected to be a “pro-crypto” president, with the crypto sector hoping he would be a broadminded sheriff who would grant their financial frontier new legitimacy; instead he embarrassed them by initiating a gold-rush on meme coins, considered the riskiest and least reputable form of mainstream cryptocurrency.Unlike traditional crypto-currencies that are “mined” and used in a blockchain, meme coins cannot be used as electronic currency and are generally regarded as having no enduring value. They are “minted” to exploit a viral moment.“Now, on the cusp of getting some liberalization of crypto regulations in this country, the main thing people are thinking about crypto is, ‘Oh, it’s just a casino for these meme coins,’” Nic Carter, a Trump supporter and cryptocurrency investor, told the New York Post. “It does the opposite of validating us, it makes it look completely unserious.”Similarly, keyboard Maga warriors who hoped that Trump would stick up for the American little guy are bitterly disappointed that he endorsed a financial scheme that immediately took little guys for a ride.The new president claimed his coin would “celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!”, but not everyone seems persuaded.“I wish Trump was more tempered on this,” someone on a conservative Reddit forum despaired after Trump’s coin debuted. “He owns casinos and knows the addiction of gambling.” Another argued that meme coins prey “on the poor and most desperate”.“Can anyone make a cogent argument in favor of this?” one poster asked. Few did. “This is bad, and looks bad,” one person said.Others called the Trump token “degrad[ing] to the office of the Presidency”, “a lame money grab”, “a bad idea with a million ways to go wrong and derail his second term”, “shady”, and “kinda gross”. Another added, “This crypto is the most blatant ponzi scheme in history and we are the marks.”One conservative wrote that their litmus test was “if Biden pulled this shit, how would I feel? … I can’t imagine any other president doing this”.“The GOP has to find
Ven. Gen 31st, 2025
