The Pump In On

Adding fuel to the fire of a market mania will end in disaster

It can be hard not to get caught up in the excitement.

On inauguration day, visitors to whitehouse.gov were treated with a video that could have been the trailer for the next Top Gun movie. As soon as it ended, you were dropped into a homepage displaying the following image:

And then, seemingly without taking a breath, the new president launched a series of executive orders that made heads spin all across the political spectrum with a level of energy that only a lifelong entrepreneur can bring to the role.

Yes, America is indeed back. And it’s not just about ending the tyranny of paper straws.

On his first full day of work, Trump announced Project Stargate alongside Masayoshi Son, Sam Altman, and Larry Ellison, promising half a trillion dollars worth of private investment in Artificial Intelligence.

Markets cheered.

The stocks that rallied, though, are since down. As Elon Musk himself subsequently tweeted,

A lot of hype. A lot of ego stroking. But not really any substance.

And then came the long-promised Bitcoin strategic reserve. Trump wasted no time in moving this forward as well.

My idea in writing this piece was to show that “investors” who piled into AI stocks based on the above, and Bitcoin over excitement provided by Trump’s “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology” order were down quite significantly… but as is usual with Trump, it’s hard to keep up with developments.

As I’m writing this, this comes out:

Subsequently, Bitcoin and all sorts of fundamentally worthless digital tokens are pumping (Bitcoin is still well below the inauguration day live, for what it’s worth).

Meanwhile, it looks like someone was in the know, entering in 50x leveraged bets on Bitcoin and Ethereum.

And if you need some context, here’s an old video of Trump’s “Crypto czar” laughing about selling his worthless shitcoin, Solana, to hapless investors while he cashes out his billions.

Using public funds to enrich the connected class is disgraceful. This is theft in broad daylight. I don’t have much else to say.

The government won’t protect you. The securities commission won’t protect you. The financial markets are ruthless. If you need a plan for how to preserve wealth amidst the criminals, grifters, and sharks, I have a good place for you to start… or you can just hit the subscribe button.