Donald Trump was accused of corruption as he returned to the White House days after launching a multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency meme coin. Former government ethics officials and presidential experts said the venture constituted an “embarrassing” conflict of interest.
The president and his wife, Melania, each announced their respective coins before his inauguration. Both were valued in the billions of dollars as Trump took the oath of office on Monday.
“There are shameful and huge conflicts of interest regarding his family business that benefits from his cryptocurrency policies,” said James Thurber, founder and former director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.
Trump “doesn’t seem to care about the public interest in cryptocurrency,” Thurber added. “He seems to be driven by profit and wants to be a big part of the US billionaire class.”
“America voted for corruption, and Trump is wasting no time delivering it,” said Walter Shaub, the former director of the US Office of Government Ethics who served under former Presidents Barack Obama and Trump. “What was once a program of government ethics, made up of part law and part norm, is a smoldering crater.” The White House was reached for comment.
Trump has vowed to transform the US into the crypto capital of the world, ending a crackdown pursued by officials under Joe Biden and taking an entirely looser approach to digital currency regulation. Major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, have surged in value since his election victory last November.
The president introduced $TRUMP on Friday night, tossing the meme coin to his followers as a way “to celebrate everything we stand for: WON!”, before the first lady followed with $MELANIA on Sunday.
About 80% of the Trump coin tokens are owned by CIC Digital, a subsidiary of Trump’s business, and another entity called Fight, Fight, Fight, according to its website. Melania Coin is offered by MKT World LLC, a firm incorporated by the first lady in 2021.
The president’s coin has the potential to raise significant funds for his business empire and inflate his personal fortune, which Forbes pegged at $6.7 billion as of Monday.
Meme currencies – which combine two prominent features, memes and cryptocurrencies, of the digital economy – are effectively digital playing cards. They have no intrinsic value, according to experts. Even the Trump coin marketing website states that it is “not intended to be or be subject to an investment opportunity.”
Across the board, the crypto market is also extremely volatile. $TRUMP, after surging over the weekend, faded on Monday during his inauguration ceremonies; Meanwhile, $MELANIA fell by a quarter. But together, their market values remained above $9 billion.
The sight of an incoming president blowing his personal fortune on his way back to the Oval Office on an industry he has vowed to support while in office caused particular alarm among former administration officials.
“This may represent the single worst conflict of interest in the modern history of the presidency,” Norman Eisen, a former ethics adviser in the Obama administration, told the Washington Post. Trump has the “deepest conflict of interest” in the crypto space, he added, citing the fact that the president is “looking to win” and regulate the industry.
Preston Byrne, a lawyer specializing in cryptocurrencies, puts the odds of a civil lawsuit over Trump’s new currency at 90% within the next 14 days, or 100% within the next 60 days. “I’m absolutely sure this will happen,” he wrote on his blog. “Somebody’s going to lose money, some lawyer is going to come up with a theory and file.”
Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban, who campaigned for Kamala Harris before last year’s presidential election, described Trump’s coin as a “gift to all of us who aren’t his fans.”
“It’s only a matter of time until a lot of people lose money on this,” Cuban wrote on Bluesky, the social network. “I’m a crypto fan. This is nothing more than crypto [infamous fraudster Bernie] Madoff was just buying and selling stocks.â€
Even figures on the periphery of Trumpworld are getting in on the meme coin frenzy. “I need you to do me a favor right now,” the Rev Lorenzo Sewell, a senior pastor at Church 180 who gave the blessing after Trump’s inauguration, said in a video posted on X hours after yesterday. of the inauguration. “I need you to go buy Lorenzo Sewell’s official coin.”
