Written by: @balajis
Compiled by: Scof, ChainCatcher
Overnight, the majority of the next president of the United States’ wealth ($59 billion) is now held in cryptocurrencies. This holds true even if cryptocurrencies drop 90% in value.
what does that mean?
1. First, President Trump’s assets have jumped from perhaps only 1% in crypto to over 90%. Many early Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana holders have experienced similar leaps in wealth.
2. Second, this phenomenon — the relative depreciation of all non-crypto assets — will become a reality experienced by billions of people around the world in our lifetime as fiat currencies decline.
3. Third, every politician, influencer, and celebrity around the world is watching this phenomenon and will closely observe its political and financial consequences. If this “meme coin” survives for a long time—although this is a big problem—they may follow suit.
4. Next, if thousands of personal meme coins emerge on the market, the situation may not be completely unacceptable, because each buyer knows what he is buying: the potential future brand value of the meme.
5. The key to everything is whether the value of Trump's assets can be sustained. If other celebrity meme coins quickly return to zero, Trump is different. He has (a) more than 100 million fans, (b) constant media attention every day, (c) presidential immunity, and (d) unprecedented government control.
6. Therefore, no matter what form of political backlash he faces, Trump now has a strong motivation to legalize cryptocurrencies in the most radical way possible.
7. Of course, this could be criticized as a conflict of interest. But the Bidens took a "10% cut," Pelosi traded stocks, Hillary made money from speeches, Podosta managed a $300 billion climate fund, and Obama signed a Netflix contract. All of these people became millionaires in various ways and received various defensible benefits.
8. So, Trump's rebuttal might be: He just does everything in public. His point might be that transparency solves the conflict of interest problem.
9. This may be true, but it does not completely solve the alignment problem. For background: a company's CEO is usually one of the largest shareholders, but his interests are aligned with those of all employees because they hold the same stock. Ideally, all shareholders would rise and fall together.
10. By analogy, ideally the president should align his interests with the citizens, for example they all hold some kind of "American currency" and receive a certain dividend from the profits of the United States. It's a bit like the Alaska Permanent Fund.
11. One way to solve the alignment problem could be for Trump to airdrop some "Trumpcoins" to every American citizen. However, perhaps a simpler approach would be for him to personally email every Trump supporter, offering free Trumpcoins.
12. Specifically: He can notify everyone 72 hours in advance, and by then even quite a few Democrats will join his mailing list just to get the airdrop.
13. Is this legal? Well, it is legal for politicians to send donation requests to voters, but as far as I know, no politician has ever attempted a personal airdrop - giving away money - especially on such a large scale.
14. According to the current valuation, Trump can airdrop $100 of locked Trumpcoin to each of the 77 million Trump voters, which will cost him $7.7 billion. After all, this asset was almost worthless two days ago. Even if he airdrops $500 to each person, he can still have more than $20 billion left.
15. Yes, this will consume some of Trump's assets. But if you have to join his mailing list to get the coins, and the airdrop can be carried out without capital gains tax, it will be "self-sustaining" by converting Trump supporters into more staunch supporters.
16. It could even win him enough political support to destroy the Democratic Party patronage machine. Basically, by joining Trump's mailing list and supporting his encryption policies, you can get benefits similar to basic income.
17. If 77 million Americans can also benefit from TrumpCoin, the accusation of conflict of interest will no longer exist. It will be a completely new social contract, a personal relationship between the president and the citizens.
It's worth pondering.
