By Lin Wanwan @linwanwan823, Dongcha Beating
January 20, 2026 marks the first anniversary of Trump's official inauguration.
Rewind to 72 hours before the inauguration ceremony, an encrypted wallet with the code 6QSc2Cx began purchasing large amounts of a new token at 18 cents per coin. This token had been created just hours earlier with no public promotion.
A few hours later, Trump announced on social media: he had issued a cryptocurrency named after himself, $TRUMP.
After the announcement, the token's price surged from under $1 to $75 within 48 hours. The wallet that entered early sold at the peak, making a profit of $109 million.
The New York Times commissioned an on-chain analysis company to track this and found that there was more than one such "mystery insider."
On the same day, an American truck driver using the online name Mike invested his daughter's entire college fund into TRUMP tokens. He posted on an overseas media platform: "The President won't let us lose money."
Three weeks later, he lost $47,000.
Six months later, the team that issued this token had cashed out over $1 billion.
Six years ago, Trump said: "Cryptocurrency is based on thin air." He was right. He just didn't complete the thought: how much that air is worth depends on who's selling it.
Appetizer
No one knows who they are on the other end of the wallet. No one knows how they knew in advance. But one thing is certain: when these people exited, another group was entering.
Chainalysis data shows that 810,000 wallets lost money on the TRUMP token, totaling over $2 billion. An average loss of $2,500 per person.
Nearly half of them were newcomers who had created their crypto wallets for the first time on the day the token was issued. They saw the news about the "President issuing a coin," downloaded the app, and transferred their savings.
Further analysis by Chainalysis showed that the average holding time for these new wallets was 47 hours. They bought near the peak and sold after the price had halved. On-chain data还原(reconstructed) a typical path: download App → deposit funds → buy → watch it rise → buy more → crash → sell at a loss → uninstall App. The entire process took less than a week.
Someone posted on Reddit: "I used my daughter's college fund." The top-voted reply under the post was: "Bro, the President won't let you lose money."
The President indeed didn't let everyone lose money; after all, many people made life-changing money that day. It's just that the majority weren't the ones making it.
Someone posted a rocket emoji on Twitter with the caption "TRUMP to the moon". Eleven days later, he posted again: "Had enough of this TRUMP garbage, sold it all."
When he sold, the token price was between $24 and $27. If he had held on for a few more months, he would have seen the price drop below $5, a decline of over 90% from its peak.
Meanwhile, the issuers of the $TRUMP token, two companies linked to the Trump family, earned over $320 million in transaction fees in the first year alone. This doesn't include the 800 million tokens they held, worth tens of billions of dollars at the issuance price.
The interesting part is the token's purchase terms. There was a line of fine print: purchasers agree to waive the right to participate in any class action lawsuits.
And another line: this token is "not an investment opportunity" and "is not related to any political activity or government position."
Translation: If you buy it and lose, you can't sue me. The money I make has nothing to do with me being President.
Main Course
$TRUMP was just the appetizer.
The real main course is called World Liberty Financial. This is a "decentralized financial platform" founded in September 2024 by the Trump family and several partners. The platform issued a governance token called WLFI and a stablecoin called USD1.
The equity structure is as follows: the Trump family holds 60%. 75% of the net income from token sales goes to the family. The reserve assets for the stablecoin USD1 are invested in U.S. Treasury bonds, generating about $80 million in annual interest, 75% of which also goes to the family.
In other words, this is not a project Trump "supports," nor is it a project Trump "endorses." This is a project directly owned by the Trump family from which they receive dividends.
As of the end of 2025, World Liberty had raised over $550 million. The list of investors reads like an Interpol watch list:
MGX, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, led by a member of the UAE royal family. In May 2025, it invested $2 billion worth of USD1 stablecoins in Binance. This means UAE government funds, through the stablecoin issued by the Trump family, flowed into the world's largest crypto exchange.
Why would these people put money into a crypto project owned by the family of a sitting U.S. President?
Reuters interviewed several investors and received strikingly consistent answers: "Proximity to the President."
There's an old Wall Street joke: How much is a round of golf with the President worth?
The answer: It depends on whether you're playing golf or paying legal fees.
World Liberty rewrote the answer to this joke. Now there's a clear price: WLFI tokens start at $250,000. "Platinum Seats" cost $1 million. "Founding Partners" cost $20 million.
You're not buying a token. You're buying a photo op, a dinner, a name to be remembered.
In political science, this is called "access capitalism." Previously, it was hidden in Super PACs, charity dinners, and lobbying firm invoices. Now it's written into smart contracts, traded 24/7, globally accessible.
The democratization of corruption.
A financial commentator put it more bluntly: "Eric Trump is in Dubai selling $20 million token packages while his father is simultaneously shaping U.S. crypto policy. You call this a business model? I call it a paid access lane."
Clearing the Field
But this paid access lane has one prerequisite: no one can be allowed to investigate.
So the first thing Trump did after taking office was to clear out everyone who might investigate him. The speed and efficiency were nothing short of artistic.
First: personnel purge.
On inauguration day, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler resigned. This "Crypto Hunter" had sued almost every major exchange during his tenure. His replacement, Paul Atkins, had previously served as an advisor to a crypto industry association.
The newly formed SEC "Crypto Task Force" was led by Hester Peirce, whose nickname in the industry is "Crypto Mom," known for years of opposing regulation.
Next followed: case clearance.
Cases from the Gensler era were dropped one after another. Coinbase case, dropped. Ripple case, dropped. Kraken case, dropped. OpenSea investigation, terminated. Uniswap investigation, terminated. Robinhood investigation, terminated.
The New York Times统计(statistics): The dismissal rate for SEC crypto cases was 33%, compared to 4% for other cases. This disparity is unprecedented in SEC history.
Finally: agency dissolution.
On April 7, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche signed a memorandum announcing the immediate dissolution of the "National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team." This team, established in 2021, specialized in investigating crypto money laundering, hacking, and fraud.
Blanche wrote in the memo: "The Department of Justice is not a digital asset regulator."
What he didn't write: When he signed this memo, he personally held over $150,000 in crypto assets. Blanche was later questioned about this during congressional testimony. He said: "My crypto holdings were 'compliantly disclosed.'"
He was right. Disclosed, therefore compliant. Compliant, therefore not a conflict of interest.
This is the brilliance of this play: it doesn't need to hide conflicts of interest, it just needs to turn conflicts of interest into a form.
Within three months, the personnel were changed, the cases were dropped, and the investigating agencies were disbanded.
The referee didn't just join the game; the referee dismantled the playing field.
The Price List for Pardons
This business scheme was missing one last component: credibility.
For Trump's crypto empire to attract global funds, it needed to make those "with records" respectable again. They had money, resources, and connections, but their status was "convicted felons" or "indicted defendants."
What to do?
Pardons.
On January 21, 2025, Trump's second day in office, he signed the first crypto-related pardon. The pardoned individual was Ross Ulbricht, founder of the "Silk Road" dark web market, originally sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years for operating a platform that facilitated $1 billion in drug transactions. Court records show at least 6 people died from drugs purchased on the platform.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: "The people who prosecuted him are scum."
After his release, Ulbricht appeared on stage at the 2025 Bitcoin Conference, telling the cheering crowd: "A few months ago I was in prison, now I'm free, thanks to you, thanks to Trump."
In March, the four founders of BitMEX were pardoned; they had pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws and were called operators of a "money laundering platform" by prosecutors. In October, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) was pardoned; he had pleaded guilty in 2023 and served time for allowing the platform to be used for money laundering.
Three pardons, six people in total, spanning dark web drugs, money laundering, and illegal operations. All cleared within ten months.
But more telling are those who were *not* pardoned.
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), founder of FTX, sentenced to 25 years in 2024 for fraud causing $8 billion in customer losses. He donated $5.2 million to the Biden campaign in 2020.
Not pardoned.
Do Kwon, founder of Terra/Luna, sentenced to 15 years in December 2025; his algorithmic stablecoin collapse caused investors $40 billion in losses.
Not pardoned.
In terms of severity of crimes, the losses caused by SBF and Do Kwon far exceeded those of the pardoned individuals. In terms of legal definition, the FTX case was outright customer fund fraud.
What's the difference?
The pardoned: Either invested in Trump's projects, or their companies had business dealings with Trump, or had massive influence in the crypto community to help endorse.
The not pardoned: Donated to Democrats, or had no business relationship with Trump whatsoever.
This is a price list for pardons.
It's not written on paper; it's written in court verdicts, on pardon documents, on the prison walls of those still serving time.
The true function of the pardon is not to免除(waive) punishment. The punishment was already served. Ross Ulbricht served 11 years, Changpeng Zhao served 4 months, the BitMEX founders paid $100 million fines.
The function of the pardon is to send signals.
Signal one: Those who cooperate with me, I will protect. Signal two: Those who don't cooperate with me, look at Sam Bankman-Fried. Signal three: I make the rules, and I can change them.
You follow the organization, the organization has your back.
Trump wrote this into the Federal Register.
The Assembly Line of Corruption
Is this corruption?
Of course not. Corruption is sneaky, needs to be hidden, risks investigation.
This is a meticulously designed system. Every component is legal, every transaction is recorded on the blockchain, every disclosure is written in government documents. It doesn't need to hide. It was designed not to need hiding.
Traditional corruption is a handicraft workshop. You need middlemen, need to launder money, worry about being recorded, worry about witnesses turning. Every transaction is a risk.
This play is an assembly line. Token contracts automatically distribute profits, the blockchain automatically records, disclosure forms are automatically compliant. No middlemen, no cash, no witnesses. Just code.
Code doesn't turn state's evidence. Code doesn't lie. Code just runs as designed.
And the people who designed it happen to be the ones who design the rules.
Genius
Trump's genius isn't in corruption. Anyone can be corrupt.
His genius lies in: designing corruption as a product.
Bribery becomes "investment." Graft becomes "dividends." Pardons become "judicial reform." Regulatory retreat becomes "supporting innovation."
It's all written in the terms, recorded on the blockchain, legal, compliant, open, and transparent.
In 2019, Trump said cryptocurrency is "based on thin air."
He was right.
He just omitted the second half: Air can also be sold for money, as long as the seller gets to decide what is legal.
This system is still running. Tokens are still trading, stablecoins are still generating interest, money from all over the world is still pouring into those wallet addresses stamped with Trump's name.
And those 810,000 retail investors who lost money, those newcomers who rushed in when they saw "President issues coin," those who thought buying TRUMP tokens was patriotic.
They are not investors. They are fuel.
The casino doesn't thank the gamblers. The casino just榨干(squeezes them dry).
Some might ask: Is this legal? That question itself is already outdated.
In this game, "legal" is not a description, but a product feature. Just like the iPhone has a waterproof feature, this system has a "legal" feature.
It is designed to be legal, just as it is designed to be profitable.
The real question is not "Is this legal?"
The real question is: When the person who defines what is legal is the same person who profits from it, what does the word "legal" even mean anymore?
In 2019, Trump said crypto was based on air. In 2025, he proved himself right: air can be priced, can be traded, can make a President a billionaire.
The only prerequisite is, you have to be the one who gets to decide what "air" is.
