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Notes -
Donald Trump launched a shitcoin!. Trump Memes - $TRUMP - on Solana. It has a market cap of $5B, comparable to actual company $DJT, and a fully diluted value of $29B. For those who are unfamiliar, a 'shitcoin' or 'memecoin' is a term for a tradeable token that lives on a blockchain, like Ethereum or Solana, that doesn't make a claim to have value or future profits, and whose price relies on a large number of retail traders who think it'll go even higher, or that it's funny. Trump Memes joins coins like Shiba Inu, Fartcoin, Pepe, and Dogwifhat, and is now #4 for market cap. They function to redistribute huge amounts of wealth from gullible crypto enthusiasts to the token developers, smart traders, and people who happen to see it first. And, of course, 80% of all Trump tokens that exist were allocated to the coin's developers, locked up for some time period.
FT: The president-elect of the US is promoting a shitcoin?
Is this good for crypto? It doesn't hurt to have a friendly President - Trump and his team were embracing crypto, planning crypto-friendly executive orders, designating it as a 'national priority', and even seriously considering a 'strategic bitcoin reserve'. It might be bad, in the long run, though - it's the perfect setup for the next Dem administration to crack down on crypto. Or even a bipartisan crackdown, especially once Trump is too old to be politically relevant, or just dead from old age, and the grip of his personality over the Republican party is gone.
And, what a thing to do a few days before your inauguration. As much has people do irrationally hate Trump, I kind of buy the liberal claim that, because we all know Trump is corrupt and depraved, and the way in which he is so is incredibly funny, people don't hold him to the same standards they'd hold their political enemies, or anyone else. Joe Biden's done a lot of bad things, but if he blatantly scammed his supporters for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, the response from his allies would be a lot stronger!
I don't like the impersonal process-oriented bureaucracy, the expert elite, the oligarchy behind democracy, whatever you call it. They are hypocritical, corrupt, dysfunctional, whatever else. But they're not infinitely that. Society still more or less works. If the alternative (whether that's just more MAGA candidates winning elections, or a moldbuggian new regime) is concentrating power in strong individuals, and this is the kind of individual that smart right-wingers - empirically - chose to concentrate power in, is that really better?
After Trump University, Trump Coins (physical), Trump Trading Cards, Trump Media Stock, and whatever the hell this is, I would have expected Trump scam market saturation. At some point it becomes more useful to model it as a form of tithing than con artistry. The people buying this junk must be getting some form of utility out of it, even if it confounds the sophisticated mind.
IMO memecoins are significantly worse than expensive collectibles because they allow, and the community encourages, normal people who aren't that smart or careful with their money to put in tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions into these coins, and then to attempt to dump your bags on other people who are more gullible and less quick before the price drops. And the creator's taking a cut of all that.
except for MTG cards, collectibles are probably worse due to carry costs. Crypto has no carry. But they both tend to be bad. There tons of stories of people who drudge up their collectibles only to learn they are appraised for nothing or are unable to sell them. With crypto at least there is a market where everyone gets the same price, and much better liquidity. That urn may have been appraised for $1000, but no one will buy it or you may only get $800 after fees. Many items at auction houses go unsold due to reserve not being met or no bidders.
Now I'm curious: do you think Trump MTG cards would be net-good or net-bad for Hasbro? A lot of MTG players would be quite angry, but it would also definitely attract new people.
I can't wait for the new mechanics.
Bluewalk -- creature is unblockable as long as defending player controls a blue state
"Viva la Raza!"
Teflon -- when this creature is the target of a spell or ability, nullify its effect and place a +0/+1 on this creature
"He can't keep getting away with it!"
Deep Statesmanship -- during your turn, when this creature would be destroyed, instead tap it, remove it from combat, and heal all damage to it
"They know. Shut it down."
In the age of custom card sites, proxy printers, and stable diffusion, we're long overdue for a spiritual successor to the Illuminati card game.
You missed a trick.
Trumple -- This creature can deal excess combat damage to a player, planeswalker or battle it's blocking.
"The Trump Curse claims another victim!"
...bonus points for the best design for a creature with Trample, Tromple and Trumple.
Dang, I was trying to think of a spin on Trample. Nice.
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Teflon is very strong, it's like a better Shroud.
It depends on what "nullify" exactly means, rules-wise. It could be strictly better shroud, though the situations on which it's better are so narrow as to be basically the same, but if "nullify" means "counter" then it's a weird ward: very strong, but symmetrical.
Shroud is also symmetrical, hexproof is the non symmetrical version of that.
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Please provide a pitch deck in next week's Tinker Tuesday.
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