DAILY TRIFECTA: The Coins Of Trump's Realm
It's good to be the crypto king.
THE SET-UP: "Special Thanks To Our Sponsor, Coinbase!”
That shockingly discordant declaration came through the PA system about halfway through Trump’s uneventful and, at times, tedious military parade. But it shouldn’t be shocking. Rather, it would be shocking if Trump was not using his self-aggrandizing parade as an opportunity to enrich himself.
The second coming of Trump has—in just six short months—ushered-in a whole new level of self-dealing, influence peddling and exploitation of the presidency for direct personal gain. It’s right there out in the open, as if it’s by design.
It’s a feature of his Presidency, not a bug.
As Speaker Mike Johnson said in response to Trump’s crypto-themed dinner at the White House: “President Trump is the most transparent president in the most transparent administration, probably in history.” “Transparent” is an interesting word often used to describe a person or scheme that is transparently corrupt. Of course, that’s not where the proud Christian was going with it. Speaker Johnson also said:
“President Trump does everything out in the open. He's not trying to hide anything. There's no shell companies or fake LLCs or fake family businesses. He's putting it out there so everybody can evaluate for themselves."
By that logic, the shamelessness of it all obviates the otherwise scandalous nature of his behavior. Had President Bill Clinton simply held a right-out-there-in-the-open auction for a night in the Lincoln Bedroom or had Hunter Biden publicly raffled a phone call with “the Big Guy,” Johnson would’ve been assuaged by the utter transparency of it all. Everybody knows that’s not true because intellectual consistency has joined shame and ethics on the shelf with all the other quaint relics from a bygone era.
That’s not to say politics used to be free of corruption. Self-dealing, influence peddling and quid pro quo arrangements are as old as the Republic (and civilization, for that matter). What seems new in American politics is the utter lack of shame about it … the “transparency” of it all.
Now there is no reason to engage in a cover-up. Cover-ups often reveal a consciousness of guilt. But if you believe you can gun someone down on Fifth Ave, grab women’s genitals or accept a free luxury Boeing 747 jetliner from a foreign power without fear of consequence, there’s no reason to feel guilty and no rationale for hiding your sons’ auspiciously-timed trip to the aforementioned foreign power. Per The Times Of Israel:
The Trump family’s business interests in the region include a new deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar, partnering with Qatari Diar, a real estate company backed by that country’s sovereign wealth fund.
And there’s nothing to stop you from going back to the Gulf’s deepest well…
The family is also leasing its brand to two new real estate projects in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, in partnership with Dar Global, a London-based luxury real estate developer and subsidiary of private Saudi real estate firm Al Arkan.
Nor would you miss the opportunity to pitch a brand new way to pay during a crypto-themed conference in the UAE. As AP reported:
During the crypto conference, a state-backed investment company in Abu Dhabi announced it had chosen USD, World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin, to back a $2 billion investment in Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. Critics say that allows Trump family-aligned interests to essentially take a cut of each dollar invested.
Critics say that because World Liberty Financial is, as AP described it, “the Trump family crypto company.” And not for nothing, one of the company’s three founders is Zach Witkoff. His dad just-so-happens to be “Trump’s do-everything envoy to the Mideast, Steve Witkoff.”
Talk about transparent!
Then again, Speaker Johnson may be right. Not about the ethics or the morality. I wouldn’t expect those from a loudly professing Christian who seeks to take food out of the mouths of the hungry. On the other hand, transparent corruption does seem to inoculate Trump against scandal. How else do we explain last week’s financial disclosure? Per Reuters:
A meme coin released earlier this year by the president - $TRUMP - alone has earned an estimated $320 million in fees, although it’s not publicly known how that amount has been divided between a Trump-controlled entity and its partners.
In addition to the meme coin fees, the Trump family has raked in more than $400 million from World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance company. The Trump family is involved, also, with a bitcoin mining operation and digital asset exchange-traded funds.
In the disclosures, Trump reported $57.35 million from token sales at World Liberty. He also reported holding 15.75 billion governance tokens in the venture.
Which brings us back to Coinbase’s sponsorship of Trump’s birthday parade. The company, which also poured $1 million into Trump’s inauguration, is a crypto exchange, just like Binance—the company that inked a $2 billion deal from investors in Abu Dhabi. They are using World Liberty Financial’s “coin” as the currency for that investment in Trump’s “family”.
Although helping to throw Trump a parade doesn’t match the dollar for dollar piece of Binance’s action in Abu Dhabi, it doesn’t hurt to be party to his party because someday soon … you may need a favor. - jp
TITLE: Crypto group Tron to go public after US pauses probe into billionaire founder
https://www.ft.com/content/13a6cead-af71-4811-9b90-553f233ac45f
EXCERPTS: Crypto billionaire Justin Sun’s digital asset platform Tron is set to go public in the US, four months after market regulators agreed to pause a fraud investigation into several of his companies.
Tron will go public in a reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed SRM Entertainment in a deal orchestrated by Dominari Securities, a New York-based boutique investment bank with ties to Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, according to two people briefed on the matter. Eric Trump is expected to take up a role at the company, which will be called Tron Inc, the person added.
The deal will involve Tron injecting up to $210mn of token assets into the new company and marks the latest in a surge of crypto tie-ups fuelled by Donald Trump’s warm embrace of the digital asset industry since he began his second term as US president.
In 2023, Sun and three of his companies, including Tron, were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US markets regulator, over allegations that they had sold unregistered securities and manipulated the market.
After Trump signalled his desire for a lighter-touch regulatory approach to crypto, the SEC and Sun in February filed a court motion to pause the lawsuit to explore a potential resolution.
Sun has since moved to strengthen his relationship with the Trump family. In May, Sun and the other 24 top holders of the $Trump memecoin attended a banquet with the president at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia.
Sun has also poured $75mn into World Liberty Financial, a Trump family crypto company from which the president has derived income of $57mn. World Liberty last week issued its first stablecoins, a type of digital dollar, on the Tron blockchain founded by Sun.
Dominari Securities, which lined up SRM Entertainment on Tron’s behalf, is headquartered in Trump Tower two floors below the Trump Organization’s offices.
TITLE: ‘This is the looting of America’: Trump and Co’s extraordinary conflicts of interest in his second term
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/16/trump-conflict-of-interest
EXCERPT: Trump returned to the White House partly on his promise to working-class Americans that he would “drain the swamp”, liberating Washington from the bloodsucking of special interests. Yet a review by the Campaign Legal Center found that Trump nominated at least 21 former lobbyists to top positions in his new administration, many of whom are now regulating the very industries on whose behalf they recently advocated.
Eight of them, the Campaign Legal Center concluded, would have been banned or restricted in their roles under all previous modern presidencies, including Trump’s own first administration.
They include Pam Bondi, the US attorney general. She approved the gift of the Qatari luxury jetliner as “legally permissible”, having herself worked as a lobbyist for Qatar.
Trump’s other great pledge was that he would put the wellbeing of “forgotten” working people before that of the vested elites. His appeal was pitched at the millions of rural and working-class Americans who have languished from mounting income inequality, the decline of manufacturing jobs in the globalised economy, and what he claimed was the negative effects of millions of undocumented immigrants.
Evan Feinman has witnessed personally and up close how this promise has fared in Trump 2.0. For the past three years, Feinman was busy leading a $42.5bn program created by Congress to bring affordable high-speed internet to every American home and business that needed it.
The project was vast and ambitious, on a par with the rural electrification drive that transformed the heartlands of America in the 1930s. Located within the US commerce department, its success is critical to the future prosperity of millions of Americans, especially those in hard-bitten rural areas of the sort that solidly backed Trump in the last election.
Studies have shown that giving families access to the internet improves the grades of school students, increases college enrolment and reduces the likelihood of households falling into debt. It also helps older Americans stay in their own homes and avoid residential care.
By the inauguration, the broadband project was well under way, with several states only weeks away from breaking ground and laying the cables. Then [billionaire investment banker Howard] Lutnick took over the reins of the commerce department.
Within a days of his confirmation, Lutnick met with senior managers and informed them he wanted to scale back on the use of fibre optic and switch to satellite. According to an account of the meeting that was given to Feinman by someone present, Lutnick specifically inquired after his friend Musk, the CEO of Starlink, which provides internet services through low-Earth orbit satellites.
Days after that, Feinman was told he was being let go. His contract was up for renewal, and it wasn’t being extended.
“I was dismayed,” Feinman told the Guardian, insisting that his distress was not so much related to his own dismissal but out of concern for the Americans who would be harmed by the shift. By his reckoning, satellite internet would not only be slower than broadband, it would also be much more expensive – costing users an extra $840 a year in fees.
“For Americans in rural locations, that’s going to really hurt. Many of the president’s strongest supporters – up to hundreds of thousands of families who voted for Trump – are going to see slower, more expensive internet services, and all to the benefit of the wealthiest man on earth.”
According to some estimates, Musk’s Starlink stands to make $10bn to $20bn should the shift from broadband to satellite internet go ahead.
The episode has left Feinman “deeply saddened. I see my nation harming itself in ways that are inexplicable and entirely avoidable.”
TITLE: Trump Mobile: President’s Company Unveils Wireless Service Delivered via AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, Plans to Launch a U.S.-Made ‘Sleek, Gold’ Android Smartphone
https://variety.com/2025/biz/news/trump-mobile-wireless-phone-service-launch-1236431690/
EXCERPTS: President Trump and his family are getting into the wireless business, in partnership with the three major U.S. carriers.
The Trump Organization on Monday announced Trump Mobile, which will offer 5G service with an unlimited plan (the “47 Plan”) priced at $47.45 per month.
Customers can switch to Trump Mobile’s T1 Mobile service using their current phone. In addition, in August, Trump Mobile plans to release the “T1 Phone” — described as “a sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best from their mobile carrier.”
The Trump T1 Phone, which runs Google’s Android operating system, will cost $499. It features a 6.8-inch touch-screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate. The smartphone also has a “fingerprint sensor and AI Face Unlock,” according to the company’s website. Reps for Trump Mobile didn’t respond to an inquiry about what company is manufacturing the Android phone.
The Trump Mobile “47 Plan” benefits include: “complete device protection”; 24-hour roadside assistance through Drive America; free international calling to more than 100 countries; telehealth services, including virtual medical care, mental health support and ordering of prescription medications. The plan does not require subscribers to sign any contracts, and there are no credit checks required, according to Trump Mobile.
“Trump Mobile is going to change the game,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a statement. “We’re building on the movement to put America first, and we will deliver the highest levels of quality and service. Our company is based right here in the United States because we know it’s what our customers want and deserve.”
Trump Mobile functions as a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, offering 5G service through the three U.S. major wireless carriers — A&T, Verizon and T-Mobile USA.
Trump Mobile and its carrier partners are subject to regulatory oversight by the Federal Communications Commission, which is headed by Trump-appointed FCC chairman Brendan Carr.