The conman extraordinare has made grifting an artform, and with cryptocurrency has hit the jackpot.
Eswar Prasad, a professor of economics at Cornell and the author of “The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance,” who has written extensively about digital currencies, contended in an email:
It is quite remarkable for any government official, let alone the leader of the free world, to create and promote a vehicle for rampant speculation and to directly profit from it. Trump seems to show scarce restraint in his willingness to use the levers of power to enrich his family and close associates with little accountability or transparency.
Trump’s release of two meme coins, $Trump and $Melania, Prasad continued, “take conflicts of interest to an altogether new level, especially given Trump’s official position and his control of the entire financial regulatory apparatus.”
Estimates of his crypto wealth range from $2.5 to $6.7 billion and it is expected to rise as he incorporates his currency into the US Treasury.
Comments