Molly WhiteNewsletter: Crypto exchanges face legal troubles, and Trump’s crypto empire grows as regulations are slashed and enforcement is sidelined.
France is probing money laundering and tax fraud issues at Binance, and KuCoin just paid $300 million in fines and withdrew from the US for failing to abide by anti-money laundering laws.
pjstackRobinhood seems to be taking a lesson from the crypto world. “Sports bets” are now “event contracts”, and “gambling” is now “an emerging asset class”. Perhaps the next pickpocket to be caught by police should try informing the officer that they’re merely democratizing finance!
Representative GT Thompson boasted at a digital assets press conference that crypto legislation will be “tripartisan” because it will be set by the crypto industry.
Musk is “exploring blockchain technology” for use at DOGE and the Treasury, and crypto bigwigs are groveling for spots on the upcoming crypto advisory council — which will, from the sounds of it, be filled exclusively with crypto executives and industry megadonors.
All that and more in this week’s issue of Citation Needed. If you enjoy my work, please consider signing up for a free or pay-what-you-want subscription. Citation Needed is an independent publication, entirely supported by readers like you.
p2173@molly0xfff What could possibly go wrong?
Sensible Crone
Angus McIntyre@molly0xfff Well, now we have an answer to the question "What could possibly be worse than Elon Musk taking over the government?”
We still do NOT, however, have an answer to the question “What is the blockchain actually useful for?”
JohnB@molly0xfff I assume you’re on the short list
@johnb I'll wait by the phone just in case
Simon Deane-Johns@molly0xfff Yep, that’s the plan https://mastodon.world/@sdjohns/113955965341316200
Simon Deane-Johns (@[email protected])
The Trump/Musk coup was planned, step by step, with Vance’s input, funded by Musk as the “CEO”, as if they were rebuilding Japan in the 1940s. They are replacing federal employees with their own “ninjas” who are also in academia and the media. They’re ignoring the courts and “paper protections”. Are Zuckerberg and the other tech oligarchs featured at the inauguration also insiders…? https://www-thenerdreich-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.thenerdreich.com/reboot-elon-musk-ceo-dictator-doge/amp/
Faye@molly0xfff @soatok you ever get those moments where you hear something so monumentally ridiculous that your brain momentarily stops working and you get half a second of the mental equivalent of television static?
Been a lot of those recently.
@FayeDrake @soatok usually multiple times per day
jb@molly0xfff Last spasm of grift before the last fool is held holding the bag.
The ideal, of course, is getting the US Treasury to hold the the hot potato, putting US tax payers on the hook for the inevitable rug pull as folks offload the risky asset to the government.
MemphisDaPlaya 🎲🎲It's a license to steal, not much different than a MLM pyramid scheme.
@molly0xfff Officer that wallet is just an emerging asset class I'm de-vesting
Gary Houston@mwhelm @molly0xfff he's not a victim of theft, he's my angel investor.