Original title: Teapot Dome. Watergate. They're Nothing Compared to This.
Original author: Jacob Silverman (author of Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley)
Original translation: Kaori, Peggy, BlockBeats
Editor's note: In the history of American politics, no president has ever interwoven state power, personal brand and financial speculation into a global experiment like Trump.
The combination of money and power is not new, but when this combination takes the form of "tokens," when the image of a head of state is minted as a tradable asset, and when political influence can flow freely on the blockchain, what we are facing is no longer corruption in the traditional sense, but a systemic restructuring.
This article documents not a single scandal but a paradigm shift: the president is no longer just a politician, but the largest holder of cryptocurrency in the decentralized economy; diplomatic relations are no longer forged through secret conversations, but connected by wallet addresses. Technology, once seen as a guarantor of transparency and fairness, may now be the new power broker.
When cryptocurrency enters the White House, and when the digital shadow of the US dollar becomes entangled with national will, we must rethink a question: In this era of "on-chain sovereignty," do the boundaries of power still exist?
The following is the original text.
If you were an authoritarian leader trying to influence another head of state, you might gift him a luxuriously appointed Boeing 747; you might spend lavishly at his hotels or invest in the numerous businesses he and his children own; you might even buy his sneakers, NFTs, and other branded merchandise.
In President Trump’s case, potential “power brokers” have a richer menu of options.
But now, all of this seems redundant.
During his campaign, Trump announced his own cryptocurrency initiative, World Liberty Financial, and launched his eponymous "Memecoin" just days before his inauguration. Anyone who purchased World Liberty tokens could indirectly funnel funds into the Trump family business. Through crypto projects controlled by the president, his son, and family friends, the Trump family has amassed a paper fortune worth billions of dollars.
World Liberty became a powerful conduit for influence: anyone—you, me, or an Emirati prince—could enrich Trump simply by purchasing the company’s tokens.
The key lies in this convenience. For those seeking influence, suitcases filled with cash and Swiss bank accounts have been replaced by crypto tokens that can be quickly transferred between wallets and exchanges. And more sophisticated crypto users—nation-state actors, hacktivist groups, money laundering rings—can obscure their tracks with tools like coin mixers.
It is this convenience that makes cryptocurrency the tool of choice for criminal organizations and sanctions evaders.
This is unprecedented in American political history.
Looking back at scandals in past administrations—the corrupt staff around President Grant, the oil lease bribes in the "Teapot Dove Scandal" during the Harding era, and even Nixon's "Watergate"—none has ever seen anyone conflate personal and government interests on such a scale as Trump, nor has anyone ever reaped such huge personal profits from it as he has.
There's nothing innovative here. What's truly novel is that a sitting president is blatantly leveraging his name, image, and social media influence to promote crypto tokens that look like thousands of other products on the market. To MAGA supporters and ordinary speculators, buying these tokens could mean breaking the bank. For a president to lead a political supporter in such a risky investment is inherently reprehensible.
But the greater risk is that powerful overseas forces may use this to transfer huge amounts of money to Trump.
For any head of state, buying Trump’s tokens or investing in his crypto projects has become a straightforward act of political speculation.
This is exactly the perverse incentive created by Trump's "encrypted donation box."
Take, for example, two recent multi-billion dollar deals between Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, one of the most influential figures in the UAE, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy.
In the first transaction, the state-owned investment fund led by Tahnoun pledged to invest $2 billion worth of USD1 stablecoins (issued by World Liberty Financial) in Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange. (Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value and serve as a "digital dollar" alternative.)
Notably, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao is seeking a pardon from Trump after pleading guilty to money laundering.
In the second deal, Witkov brokered an agreement with venture capitalist David Sacks, Trump's appointed "AI and Cryptocurrency Chief," to allow the UAE to purchase hundreds of thousands of high-end AI chips for use in its data centers. These chips are highly sought-after in the global AI race and are subject to strict export controls. Experts worry that the chips could be resold or shared with Chinese companies by the UAE.
Although there is no conclusive evidence showing that there was a clear "exchange of interests" in these two transactions, the participants and interest networks are highly overlapping, and the model of mixing public and private is becoming a hallmark of the Trump administration.
Tahnoun’s use of the $2 billion USD1 stablecoin is intriguing in itself.
If his purpose is just to invest in Binance, he can just transfer the money directly.
Choosing World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin as an “intermediary” is essentially “making blood” for a company that directly benefits Witkov and Trump.
Despite the scandal, Trump's crypto activities have mostly taken place in a relatively public environment.
Some notorious crypto figures even boasted on social media that they had purchased tens of millions of dollars in WLFI tokens.
The most active among them is Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, who frequently shows off his large holdings of World Liberty and Trump meme coins on social media, and positions himself as an important supporter of Trump's crypto empire.
In February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asked a federal judge to halt its civil fraud lawsuit against Sun, a request the court granted. In May, Sun, one of the top holders of Trump Memecoin, was invited to a dinner at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, where he received a gold watch from the president.
In the past (a few years ago), if the president had such an obvious conflict of interest, Congress would have held hearings and law enforcement agencies would have launched an investigation.
But the Supreme Court's recent ruling on "presidential immunity" has almost rendered these oversight measures ineffective.
The Justice Department will not prosecute a sitting president.
At the start of his new term, Trump fired 18 inspectors general—key figures who could have uncovered and investigated government encryption practices. In February, he ordered the Justice Department to suspend enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (which prohibits bribery of foreign officials) until four months later.
At the same time, regulators have shifted their focus away from the cryptocurrency sector, and the Trump administration has helped advance a legislative agenda favored by the crypto industry.
The crypto wealth accumulated by Trump and his descendants seems to be continuing to expand during his term.
There's no sign of a "ceiling" to stop the continued influx of foreign capital. This opens the door to a level of corruption never before seen in the United States. We must confront its dark potential.
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