President-elect Trump launched his own cryptocurrency overnight and swiftly appeared to make more than $25 billion on paper for himself and his companies.

Why it matters: The stunning launch of $TRUMP caught the entire industry off-guard, and speaks to both his personal influence and the ascendancy of cryptocurrency in his administration.

  • It also speaks to the nature of the crypto industry that someone could have $25 billion worth of something that literally did not exist 24 hours previously.
  • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Please someone explain how this is in any way legal. This is fucking absurd. The amount of hatred I have for every racist imbecile that supported this rapist fascist felon is too much for me to bear. The logical thing to do would be to just ignore everything because my mental well-being is more important, but this seems like some historic occurrence that should be stopped by any means necessary.

    • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 months ago

      Why should legality matter? What are laws? It’s rules that the government put down for everyone to follow. And what happens if someone controls all aspects of the government?

      Legality is meaningless in the face of fascism, because the fascist government will be making the laws. it’s like asking why it wasn’t illegal to do genocide in nazi Germany. Or asking why it wasn’t enforced by law to hide jews from the nazis to protect them

      Legality is not relevant. Legality is not morality or a foundation for ethics. Legality is just the will of the government, for better or for worse. It is not something that necessarily serves the people’s beat interests

    • vvvvan@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      At this point, anything the billionaires want is legal. It is fucking absurd. The entirety of T****'s first term was insanity. This one will be catastrophic, and unfixable for generations. His supreme court, judges, corruption has made it inevitable.

      I tried to logically deal with the firehose of lies and hatred, thought it was important and worth it. Not anymore. Not again. This country is too fucking dumb for me to care anymore, too easily manipulated. Not worth the pain. I did what I could, voted against it every time. “But the price of eggs!”

      I’m just going to fuck off and try to enjoy myself while it burns. Someone wake me for the revolution, the oligarch bbq, or some legit riots at least.

    • brown567@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Repugnantcans The party of misanthropic fascist vermin cheated the system to stack the highest court in the land with loyalists who now nearly unconditionally support anything Trump says/wants. It’s legal because they literally put in writing that any/everything he does is.

      Edit: you right

    • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Crypto is legally a type of stock in the usa. So has long as trum doesn’t do anything that would get him on the hook for stock or security fraud he is in the clear

  • RedstoneValley@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    Crypto market cap does not equate the equivalent in dollars. When you create a new cryptocoin you can freely adjust the coin’s parameters such as the amount of available coins. So let’s say you “print” 1000 coins and sell one at $50. You now have a market cap of $50000.

    It’s like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, with the notable distinction that the rabbit isn’t real. What makes it real is if enough suckers actually buy the coins with real dollars.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      I wish more people understood this. Especially in the press, since its their job to educate everyone else.

      Trading volume is what matters, not trading price. It’s only worth $25 billion if you can turn $25 billion of it into cash.

      Unfortunately since banks still haven’t take wised up to this, and the wildcat crypto banks really haven’t, its likely still possible to pump a meme coin and then take out loans against the purported asset value. The bank is then left trying to repossess a pile of worthless memecoin when you fail to repay the loan.

      • RedstoneValley@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        I’d like to add that trade volume is only a slightly better indicator, because wash trading is very easy in crypto. Wash trading happens when the coin’s owner and/or an accomplice buy and sell coins back and forth among themselves. It’s easy to do if you have control over a huge amount of coins, because you printed them yourself at the low low price of $0. This has two effects: the trade volume grows, which makes it look like there is public interest in the coin, and you can pump up the price at the same time.

        • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Very true.

          I suppose I should have said “Fiat dollar trading volumes” although that’s an oversimplification. The question you’re really trying to answer is “How much actual demand is there for this invented commodity?”

          The answer is, inevitably, not nearly enough. When 80% of the available supply of something is locked up in a vault somewhere, there’s absolutely no way that 80% could be liquidated without crashing whatever market exists.

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      In other words, in about a week we’ll want to start shorting this asset. Trump will have absolutely no hesitation to hyperinflate it just printing more trump coins. This man doesn’t do subtle or half measures, he goes big, and this is going to fail in a big way.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    If you previously weren’t convinced crypto is a scammers paradise, this should convince you.

    EDIT: removed not nice comment.

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Meme coins are a scam, yes. Coins with ETFs are legit. Buy BTC and stake ETH; ignore the rest.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        We literally have (what I think is) a scam instance with a bunch of accounts made in the same day that’s been online in the fedi for about 20 days now @realbitcoin.cash. Why is there a fedi instance seemingly making fake accounts to pump bitcoincash? Doesn’t Bitcoincash have an ETF?

        Why were all the accounts made on the same day if this is organic and not an admin making a bunch of accounts?

        Sorry man, this kind of stuff doesn’t pass my personal sniff test (you do you), and the fact that it’s already here doesn’t make me go “gosh this isn’t a scam at all.”

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I’m sure that’s the first payment of the bribes from Russia and Saudis. Untraceable and the plausible irrationality of buying memecoins deflects questions.

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The fact that fartcoins are 30 times as “valuable” as Trumps idiot-coins should be evidence enough.

      • slst@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        To be fair the valuability of a coin is not that much related to its popularity, but to its difficulty of obtention through proof-of-work (of proof of stake)

  • amzd@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    something that literally did not exist 24 hours previously.

    And still doesn’t exist. It’s not a tangible thing.

    • TootSweet@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I doubt they can hear much of anything with their heads lodged that far up Trump’s ascending colon.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      Hey guys! Sorry to interrupt you, Nick. Hello. Anywho! It’s getting kinda late, so I’m gonna go to bed. I’ll talk to you all tomorrow.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I hope everyone is acutely aware that you, me, WE are not in a class war.

    WE HAVE LOST A CLASS WAR.

    What happens now?