Nine months into his second time in the White House, Donald Trump has officially rebranded the United States as what he calls a “blockchain nation.” Nobody is quite sure what that means, but it appears to involve Eric Trump shouting “buy the dip” at cabinet meetings while Don Jr. live streams himself explaining Bitcoin to confused interns.
Eric Trump, once described by his own family as “the tall one with ideas about golf course fertilizer,” is now Chief Strategy Officer of something called American Bitcoin. The company mines crypto using enough electricity to melt the polar ice caps twice over, although Eric insists it is environmentally friendly because the office recycles printer cartridges.
Don Jr. has gone in another direction. He invested heavily in a company called Thumzup, which pays people to recommend products on Instagram. The business brought in $151 in revenue last quarter, which is less than what Don Jr. spends on hair gel, but he explained that the company’s true value is that it “plans to keep Bitcoin in the reserves, which is basically like owning Google before it was Google, except better.”
The brothers even rang the opening bell at Nasdaq to celebrate a deal with a company that was once doing biotech, then somehow became a fintech, and now mainly exists to buy WLFI tokens. WLFI is the official Trump family crypto. The tokens cannot be traded, sold, or used for anything. They are described as governance tokens, which means holders can vote on issues like whether Eric should wear a blue tie or a red tie at the next fundraiser.
The whole thing is backed by a supporting cast of investors who seem like they wandered in from a rejected reality show. Justin Sun, whose platform Tron was linked to funding terrorist groups, is now a major backer. Binance, the exchange that was once in trouble with U.S. regulators, suddenly had its lawsuits disappear after Abu Dhabi sent $2 billion in Trump’s new stablecoin, which is called USD1. Stablecoin is a generous term. USD1 is pegged to the value of Trump’s applause at rallies, which means it can rise or fall depending on whether he dances to YMCA that night.
Eric has also discovered he can move the market with almost no effort. In July he replied “Agreed” to a random post about Ethereum and billions of dollars changed hands. Later he posted “Ether go up good” which experts now cite as one of the most important economic statements of the year.
Critics warn this is all a gigantic conflict of interest, but supporters argue that if you cannot trust a family who once tried to sell Trump Steaks through Sharper Image, then who can you trust with your retirement savings.
Don Jr., leaving the Nasdaq building with a vape in his hand and a gold-plated USB stick he called his “crypto vault,” summed it all up. “We are not just changing money, we are changing the entire world. Also does anyone know how to get Bitcoin off my phone because I think I just sent four million dollars to some kid streaming Fortnite.”
