51 Comments

I’ll admit to being totally clueless here, except about one point:

Trump is, yet again, using the Presidency to enrich himself and the big money grifters who pay him, all at the expense of the American people.

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You may not be as clueless about the levels of electricity required to create a bitcoin.

My memory says it is on the level of the power used by a small nation, for each coin.

I would like this to be part of the narrative of bitcoin again.

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It's a win win situation whereby the other than rich get fleeced

and the environment gets fucked.

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You need to adjust your thinking here. If we're to have the best swamp, it needs to be the hugest, deepest swamp. A big, beautiful swamp. A swamp that would make even a kleptocrat like Putin drool in envy.

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A swamp like nobody has ever seen. Everybody is talking about. It’ll be huge!! (SMH)

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I'm sure Putin is getting his cut.

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Of course he did. He got Trump elected and now he gets to get much more of what he wanted in Ukraine (and whoever "causes him to invade them" next).

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The trump/musk/vance regime is a corrupt enterprise. At this point they don’t even try to hide the corruption, instead it is on open display every day. In this way, they are acclimating the American people to the corruption by treating it as a normal process.

Crypto has been appealing to many because it works outside the bounds of normal government regulation. And now this corrupt government wants to give crypto a sheen of legitimacy. This whole scheme will work to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

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A "Strategic Crypto Reserve" is just another way to pump money into Trump and his cronies' wallets. Nothing more. 100% corruption, just like Russia.

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And the trash that voted for them entirely approve of it, as their lives are scams too, on the minor scale their stupidity and resources allows.

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The sheer uselessness of a "strategic" crypto reserve should be the lead on this story. We already know that cryptocurrency, characterized by its volatility and lack of regulatory standards, is a Ponzi scheme. Failure to acknowledge this reality up front is a journalistic sin on the part of the media outlets that commit it.

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I'd suggest we dub this effort "The Ponzi Reserve." That will help people see it for what it is.

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Thank you Judd, Rebecca, and Noel for plowing through this world of crypto currency. May Trump's fortune Ripple into nothing but bankruptcy and debt! Of course Trump tries to demean President Biden "A U.S. Crypto Reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden Administration." My intuition has always been that these wannabe forms of money would only lead to loss and a disastrous financial mess. Of course I'm no expert, but I don't think Trump is an expert at anything.

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Oh, he is very good at the grift, the con, the lie and the cheat.

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Every time someone touts Bitcoin or any of its derivatives to me I respond by saying I don’t support human trafficking, I don’t support drug trafficking and I don’t support ransomware the three main uses of crypto today. If its a Ponzi scheme, I don’t care, if people want to use drugs I can’t do much about it, I don’t buy lottery tickets either.

I say this because like so many of the President’s pronouncements they are like farts in the wind, they stink and are quickly forgotten. Anyone who invests in this excrement deserves to get taken to the cleaners.

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David, I gotta say this may be the best response to this Idiocracy I have heard. I have never, except from a pot grower, had anyone ask me to pay for anything with cryptocurrency so what exactly does it buy and sell? Those who make money are first in on the pyramid and everyone else up to a point is receiving diminishing returns until those run out and everyone left has lost money.

Also, A Fart in the Wind is the perfect title for Trump overall, and for all the shit he spews.

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I agree except for the part of the US economy being deeply tied or dependent on it. It’s nothing but grift.

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it's a money laundering and bribery scheme on a scale we've never seen before

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Don’t repeat his strategic reserve lie, even when criticizing it. Call it the new bucket for corruption or the US buy-in to the crypto ponzi sceme. Emphasize both the corruption (as you do substantively) by what framing you use to describe it. Repeating frames -even critically - anchors them in our minds. Energy-sucking ponzi scheme is the best descriptor usually. Opportunity for international corruption to escape oversight legitimate currencies face will also do.

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How can you have a "strategic reserve" of anything that is likely to be worthless when you most need it?

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this makes the Teapot Dome Scandal look like child's play

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Let’s not date ourselves… Lol.

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How is cryptocurrency anything besides hot air? Those who believe have made killings but only when they cash out into real money. Otherwise, it’s just more hot air accumulating. At least in the stock market the shares stand for something tangible.

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Trump, Musk & MAGA, in their vision of gangster government & kleptocracy, believe that democracy is for sale & that they've bought control of the US government...that Trump, Musk & their MAGA oligarchs can act with impunity. Threats of retribution & prosecution for those who would uphold the rule of law are intended to silence opposition & compel obedience in advance.

Who has seized control of ~20% of federal payment & employment control systems with his illegal hackers? Musk with tens of billions in government contracts & companies that paid zero taxes...who has promised pain for the middle class & needy while he enriches techno kleptacrats like himself & other uber wealthy authoritarians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QXQWHdSMcM

The battles for democracy & the rule of law will require resilient resistance…

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And the way the world works today, too many will be overwhelmed by all of the details, all of the permutations and merely hunker down to take their underserved and unearned punishment in silence!

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And may also require a number of years.

Stock up on community!

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the only conceivable "use" I can think of would be paying ransom to an cyber attacker who captured government data and asked for ransom in crypto (since that does seem to be what they do these days). which raises the question does DT and/or Musk expect such an attack?

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The king of the grifters is on his throne handing out favors to his loyal subjects/fellow grifters. We have to depose him.

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In five years the number of people who will claim they "didn't really support Trump" will be staggering.

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If Trump put as much honest effort and thought into work to benefit the middle and lower class members of our country as he puts into lining his own pockets we would all be so much better off.

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World Liberty Financial 🤮 Justin Sun, born in China and credited with the success of WLF, bought the duct taped banana and rocketed into public consciousness. Sun is known for operating in dark shadows where corruption is dangerous.

Then he buddied up to the Orange Menace pumping $Millions into a failing endeavor. It prompted questions about what he wanted in return. Speculation that he needed protection from SEC enforcement Now here we are.

“SEC Halts Fraud Prosecution of Chinese Crypto Bro Whose Purchases Enriched Trump“

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/sec-fraud-prosecution-chinese-crypto-entrepreneur-justin-sun-donald-trump-world-liberty-financial-tokens/

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