Author: @balajis
Compiled by: Scof, ChainCatcher
Overnight, the vast majority of the wealth (USD 59 billion) of the next US President is now held in the form of cryptocurrencies. Even if the value of cryptocurrencies drops by 90%, this phenomenon still holds true.
What does this mean?
First, in President Trump's assets, cryptocurrencies have leapt from possibly only 1% to over 90%. Many early holders of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana have also experienced similar wealth leaps.
Second, this phenomenon - the relative devaluation of all non-crypto assets - will become a reality shared by billions of people around the world in our lifetime, as fiat currencies decline.
Third, every politician, influencer and celebrity in the world is watching this phenomenon, and they will closely observe its political and financial consequences. If this "meme coin" can persist - though that's a big if - they may well emulate it.
Next, if thousands upon thousands of individual meme coins emerge on the market, the situation may not be entirely unacceptable, as each buyer knows what they are buying: the potential future brand value of the meme.
The key is whether the value of Trump's assets can be sustained. If other celebrity meme coins quickly go to zero, Trump is different, as he has (a) over 100 million fans, (b) constant media attention, (c) presidential immunity, and (d) unprecedented government control.
Therefore, regardless of what form of political backlash he faces, Trump now has a strong incentive to legalize cryptocurrencies in the most radical way.
Of course, this could be criticized as a conflict of interest. But the Biden family collected "10% cuts", Pelosi traded stocks, Hillary profited from speeches, and Podesta manages a $300 billion climate fund, while Obama signed a Netflix deal. All of these people have become millionaires in various ways, with various defensible interests.
So Trump's rebuttal may be: he's just doing everything out in the open. His point may be that transparency solves the conflict of interest problem.
This may be valid, but it doesn't fully solve the problem of alignment. As background: a company CEO is usually a major shareholder, but his interests are aligned with all employees because they hold the same stock. Ideally, all shareholders rise and fall together.
By analogy, the ideal situation is for the President to be aligned with the interests of citizens, such as them all holding some kind of "American coin" and receiving a dividend from the profits of America. This is a bit like the Alaska Permanent Fund.
One way to solve the alignment problem might be for Trump to airdrop some "Trump coins" to every American citizen. But perhaps an easier approach is for him to personally email every Trump supporter and provide them with free Trump coins.
Specifically: he could give 72 hours' notice to everyone, and even many Democrats might join his email list just to get the airdrop.
Is this legal? Well, politicians soliciting donations from voters is legal, but as far as I know, no politician has tried a personal airdrop - that is, giving money - especially on such a large scale.
At current valuations, Trump could airdrop 100 USD worth of locked-up Trump coins to 77 million Trump voters, which would cost him $7.7 billion, since this asset was virtually worthless just two days ago. Even if he airdropped $500 per person, he would still have over $20 billion left.
Yes, this would consume some of Trump's assets. But if getting on his email list is required to receive the coins, and the airdrop can be done without capital gains tax, this will "pay for itself" by converting Trump's supporters into even more ardent supporters.
It could even give him enough political support to destroy the Democratic protection machine. Basically, by joining Trump's email list and supporting his crypto policies, you'd get a kind of basic income benefit.
If 77 million Americans also benefit from Trump coins, the conflict of interest accusation will be gone. This would be a new social contract, a personal relationship between the President and the citizens.
Worth pondering.
