Trump's Shady Crypto Empire Uncovered by John Oliver
John Oliver returned to 'Last Week Tonight' on Sunday night, focusing his show nearly entirely on President Trump's involvement in the crypto market. The HBO host pointed out that despite previously calling crypto 'a disaster waiting to happen', Trump now refers to himself as 'the first crypto president'.Crypto, which Trump had dismissed as potentially fake and a speculative asset, has become the dominant business interest of his family.
The Trump family's main crypto ventures include meme coins, which are essentially novelty tokens that follow the trajectory of pump-and-dump schemes. These tokens spike in value when they first come out but then immediately crash with insiders selling at the peak. The Trumps launched their meme coins just prior to his second inauguration, which skyrocketed in value and then plummeted. By December, Trump's meme coin was down 92% in value while Melania's was down 99%, but Trump walked away with $636 million.
The real issue is that nearly 1 million people lost money in the Trump meme coin, totaling losses of $3.8 billion. One way you can buy into World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's biggest crypto venture, is by purchasing a governance token, $WLFI. This allows you to vote on how the token is run, with 75% of purchases flowing to the company as a fee. The company has been involved in several sketchy deals, including a $45 million investment from Justin Sun and an agreement with an Emirati investment fund to invest $2 billion.