Crypto, Trump & A Ballroom? 🤯

The air, thick with the scent of digital dust and…well, let’s say compromise, shimmers around this affair. Senator Murphy, a man seemingly convinced the world runs on favors and backroom deals-and, frankly, who are we to disabuse him of that notion?-has taken umbrage. He alleges Coinbase, a digital bazaar of considerable scale, somehow benefited from the previous administration’s…let’s call it generosity. A rather vulgar display of cause and effect, wouldn’t you agree? 💸

Mr. Shirzad of Coinbase, a fellow not prone to minced words (or, apparently, patience), responded with a dismissive wave of the digital hand – an ‘X’ post, they call it now. “Ridiculous,” he declared. A perfectly adequate response to accusations that hang suspended between the thoroughly obvious and the deeply cynical. It’s all so fundamentally…human.

Senator @chrismurphyCT. This is ridiculous. Here are the facts:
– Fairshake is non-partisan superpac. Ask your staff to look up the public disclosures and you’ll see that FS supported multiple Democrats, including 3 of your new Senate D colleagues.
– Presidential Inaugural…

– Faryar Shirzad 🛡️ (@faryarshirzad) October 30, 2025

The core of the complaint, if one can disentangle it from the dramatic flourish, concerns donations. Some forty-six million dollars, casually tossed into the political arena, and a contribution to a new ballroom for the White House. The very idea! As if power brokers ever resisted a gilded invitation… Senator Murphy paints a scene of blatant corruption, a “Trump corruption factory,” truly operatic. One almost expects a chorus of lamenting economists. 🎭

Here’s an example of how Trump’s corruption factory works.

1. Coinbase put $46M into elections to help Trump allies.
2. Sends him a huge check for his inauguration.
3. Trump drops SEC lawsuit against Coinbase.
4. Trump demands big donation from Coinbase for ballroom. Done.

– Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) October 30, 2025

A Defense Most Earnest (Or Is It?)

Coinbase, naturally, insists the donations flowed through a “nonpartisan” conduit, a rather convenient label, wouldn’t you say? Both Democrats and Republicans received a touch of the digital largesse. This, we are asked to believe, absolves all. Inaugural donations? Standard practice! The ballroom? A joint effort! They are predictably indignant, these captains of the digital realm. The paperwork is all there, see? October’s chill wind seems to carry only bureaucratic details.

And the SEC case? A relic of a previous, apparently vengeful chair, cast aside by a more enlightened administration. A ‘right decision on the merits’. Oh, the bureaucracy, the endless justifications! They even speak of “innovation” – a hundred new stablecoin projects blossoming in the wake of some GENIUS Act. You almost believe, for a fleeting moment, that it’s all about the technology. Almost. 🙄

The Ripple Effect

But the tremors extend, of course. Binance.US finds itself in a similar predicament, accused of favoring a Trump-linked stablecoin. A pattern emerges, doesn’t it? A certain…elasticity of principle. And now, Representative Khanna proposes a ban on crypto trading for politicians. A noble gesture, perhaps, or merely a frantic attempt to dam a flood. It is, in any case, rather late to be concerned with decorum.

The whole affair is a rather disheartening spectacle, a reminder that even in the shimmering, decentralized world of cryptocurrency, the old rules – and the old appetites – still apply. The scent of power, you see, clings to everything. Even Bitcoin. 😒

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2025-10-31 11:41