-
Unknown A
All right, let's get to the part of the show that I'm most interested in talking about, which is this fraking crypto reserve. What's with the Trump truth up here on the screen? He announces a US Crypto reserve that will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden administration. Which is why my executive order on digital assets directed the presidential working group to move forward on a crypto strategic reserve that includes xrp, SL and ada. I will make sure the US Is the crypto capital of the world. We are making America great again. He followed that up, Emily, with another one saying, oh, obviously Bitcoin and Ethereum, other valuable cryptocurrencies, will be the heart of the reserve. I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum. So we've got five different crypto assets here that. So this has been floated for a while by Trump and now he's actualizing it and announcing which particular coins are going to benefit from U.S.
-
Unknown A
taxpayer dollars or funding being used to pump up the prices of these things to be held in a crypto asset reserve. Basically, the problem for a bunch of crypto billionaires is that they're holding these quote unquote assets and there isn't enough liquidity for them to cash out their bag. And now the US Taxpayer will backstop those assets so that these crypto billionaires can cash in. The guy who has been in charge of putting this together is a guy named David Sachs who was a billionaire. He's one of the billionaires who was involved in siliconnon Valley bank and cried to the federal government that they needed bailout when that was on the verge of collapse. And has definite conflict of interest here in terms of which coins are being selected. So first let's put C8 up on the screen and you can see the way that these crypto coins have.
-
Unknown A
Of course, they went through the roof. They soared after Trump revealed which coins were going to be part of this. Then, with regard to David Sachs and the reported conflicts of interest here, which is a really fancy way for just saying that he's completely enriching himself. Put this up on the screen. This individual, Derek Martin, I checked all this out, by the way, it's accurate. Has a massive conflict of interest with this announcement. Folks should be aware of new level of corruption. Put the next piece up on the screen. His company, crafftengers, has invested in a startup called Bitwise Invest since at least 2017. He's listed as the primary investor. And just so happens that the main crypto coins going into the crypto strategic reserve fund just so happen to match BitWises top 5 crypto holdings. Incredible self dealing here mean corruption really doesn't begin to describe this digital asset reserve.
-
Unknown A
Even putting David Sachs aside, mean this is just a heist, it's just theft, it's just robbing the treasury to elevate the price of these completely bullshit. Meaningless. I mean, talk about a Ponzi scheme. Like crypto is the ultimate Ponzi scheme. There's not even a pretense of these things have value in and of themselves. And yet we're using federal government resources to backstop the price of these tokens so that insiders can cash in, which that already appears like that is happening and so that a bunch of billionaires can cash out their holdings. I mean it is a classic pump and dump. But using federal government resources in order to do that and coming at the same as they're like, we got toa cut Social Security. It's totally insane. I almost don't have words for it.
-
Unknown B
This is a genuine problem for Sachs and one that he anticipated because he says he divested all of his crypto holdings before taking government office. But what's interesting about that and Ryan pointed this out and asked him about it on X and I'm curious what you make of this because, I mean, it seems like if you were someone who's been into crypto for years and you're a major stakeholder in the crypto world, you would probably have the investments that you just outlined. It's not surprising that that's where Trump went with the reserve and that's somebody who wasn't like, you know what I mean? It seems to me like that genuinely coincidence wouldn't be the right word. Justrt of it's a logical place where your money would be parked. And I think that speaks to the bigger problem with having a cryptosar is that he has companies.
-
Unknown B
Right. And correct me this is, I know you're more into this than I am, but he has companies where the companies are invested obviously in crypto. It doesn't matter if you divress, but if your companies are invested in crypto and we don't know that he's divested from those companies, so of doubt he's divested from those companies.
-
Unknown A
Correct.
-
Unknown B
That seems like a huge, huge problem.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, that's exactly right. And then mean. Also the other problem is that who knew in advance which coins were going to be pumped up by this thing? And someone noted there was a position that was taken 50 times leverage, the tun of $200 million long. And I think it was ethereum in bitcoin.
-
Unknown B
Well to me it seems fairly obvious that the reserves would be ethereum bitcoin like some of the ones that are in there, which What? But it's like the timing.
-
Unknown A
Exactly. So this position was taken a day before the announcement. 50 times leverage. Meaning that if there was a 2% drop, all of those millions gone, wiped out, $200 million loss. 't you're telling me that person didn't know? Come on. And it's not just this. This is unbelievably naked just theft of the public resources. In my opinion there's zero strategic reason why we need to hold these important meaningless Ponzi scheme unquote assets. Zero justification for that whatsoever. Nothing that makes sense at all. But you also have a situation where one individual who was being investigated by the SEC bought a bunch of Trump shitcoin posted publicly about it took I think it was the largest purchase of these tokens and investment in his crypto scam. And then oh lo and behold that NC dropped their investigation the vehicle to just outright bribe Trump through his crypto coin.
-
Unknown A
I mean this is. Listen, politicians has been corrupt since the beginning of time. Nothing new about that. But this is a world historic level of theft and graft and just brazen pay to play corruption that has been enabled by crypto and this is just the latest iteration of that. You can put C10 up on the screen that has the details about this Chinese crypto obtrepreneur guy named Justin Sunn. So they halted the fraud prosecution of this Chinese national who sent Trump millions and bragged about it so that to make sure he knew that he had invested $30 million in these crypto tokens so it was paying off for him. CEO of Coinbase also benefited the SEC's dismissing their lawsuit. That move came after Coinbase boosted Trump's crypto meme coin donated 75 million dolars to a approach Trump super pa and chipped in a million dollars to Trump's inauguration celebration.
-
Unknown A
So presidency just completely for sale by these robbert barons.
-
Unknown B
Well and I think in the corruption front, I was going to say this earlier about Elon Muskin Starlink. Part of the problem with all of this right now is that they do have a sincere ideological, not always sincere like Trump's. I don't think it is sincere. I don't think he sincerely gives a damn about crypto because he said it was a scan and then it could undermine the US dollar and you have to is the same thing with him in TikTok. Right. It was pretty nakedly transactional how his opinion on it flipped. Elon Musk has a sincere ideological belief. We were talking about his sort anarcho capitalism flirtation before in crypto. He really does believe in it. And so then and David Sach certainly does legitimately believe in crypto. And so then you have this, you're just sort of being asked to trust that this is all for the good of this ideological argument and not self dealing.
-
Unknown B
And with Starlink it's interesting because Starlink is a very cool technology, it's an awesome product and it may be the best for the faa. We don't know though that because it has the best argument to the FAA for getting this contract in the same way that, well, how is anyone supposed to believe that this is genuinely the right move for the strategic reserve and not self dealing. You then just have to put your trust in Trump, Elon, in this case David Sachs and David Sachs will have this ideological reason, give all these explanations. But it's really hard. You're just asking the public to say, yes, I trust that this was not about your portfolio, even though the public has seen that happen for decades. And that's what Trump is a response to is see that happened for he said, I alone know the system. I know the system and I alone can fix it.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. So Trump and Elon have a lot of like theoretical ideological divergences. The way that Trump positioned himself certainly in 2016, but someat@ this time as well. And the way Elon portrays his ideology, but in just their commitment to theft of the public birth, they are completely united. I do think that that is one of the most important operating ideological commitments that you can see throughout this administration. Elon's primary goal, I think he wants to be the world's first Australiaaire and he wants to use government money, our public taxpayer dollars to fund SpaceX so he can get to Marseah.
-
Unknown B
He wants to go to Mars.
-
Unknown A
He wants to plunder the government so he can go to Mars. That's his primary operative goal. And if that means grandma's going to starve and that means kids in Africa, doesn't matter. That's his goal. Okay, Just brazen theft of the public purse so that he can go to Mars. Trump wants to be wealthy on the tune of like Elon Musk. I mean Trump is obviously incredibly rich guy, but he's not like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel rich.
-
Unknown B
And that was debated too. I Mean, what Trump's actual worth was before these coins, as you did a great TikTok on how there's a few whales who are at least as the time you did that TikTok, we're holding the Trump coin. That's another example of, like, we legitimately do not know if he knows who they are. Like, we don't know who they are. We know who, like, one or two of them are, but we don't know who they are. We don't know anything about that, and we don't know if he knows who they are. So being asked to trust that Trump's net worth was jacked up as he was entering office anonymously by people who were just trying to make money. And it was like a baseball card deal. It was just really good.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, well. And by having this shit coin, anyone, whether it's the Chinese crypto dude or anyone else, can just funnel millions of dollars into it, a portion of which go directly into Trump's pocket to get their way with the government. So he's robbing us. Then the whole foreign policy direction of we're going to take Greenland, we're going to take Gaza, we're going to take half of Ukraine or whatever. That's all about his benefit for his family and Elon Musk as well, but a whole cadre of oligarch billionaires who can also rob those countries and benefit themselves as well. So it's a pretty consistent commitment across the government and certainly helps us to understand all this. Why are Trump and Elon able to get along so well? And why isn't there been a falling Ye? Because they both have a commitment to stripping the government for parts and exploiting whatever they can in order to enrich themselves and pursue their own goals.
-
Unknown A
But I think their common commitment to theft of the public purse is a bond that they share and part of what is keeping that relationship together.
-
Unknown B
Although I think Trump's primary concern right now is his historical legacy, and where those two things depart will be interesting.
-
Unknown A
So when you think he cares, I.
-
Unknown B
Think he cares that he will be looked at as like a great walking around, having his people call himself, call him the peacemaker in chief, like I think he does at this point, care about how history sees him. And that's dangerous because it gets to just posturing, and every president does that. But, like, to what extent is this going to just be a public relations. Because the presidenc'going to be a public relations campaign? I think what he cared about first was leaving office with money. So now that he has that covered. He doesn't want to go to prison, so there's that, too. That could factor into the conversation about a potential third term as Bannon, I think, sadly, is pushing. But I think he wants to be perceived as someone who healed the country. I think he desperately wants to be perceived that way. And I think where that departs with Elon Musk is going to be a problem for Trump.
-
Unknown B
But what we've seen so far is that it hasn't been to your point about the moneyeah. So, I mean, it's he really cares about the optics. That's why he's obsessed with polling and obsessed with how he won a mandate in the popular vote and all of that. So Elon could potentially be a problem to that down the road. But even when we've seen breaks so far in public perception of Elon Musk, Trump has not. This gets your theory right. Trump has not departed from him.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. Hey, if you like that video, hit.
-
Unknown B
The like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people.
-
Unknown A
And if you'd like to get the full show ad free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up@breakingpoints.com. that's right, get the full show.
-
Unknown B
Help support the future of independent media@breakingpoints.com.