Sure, but why wouldn't he? Personally, he's been profiting handsomely. What does he care, so long as he makes money?
"Reuters calculated that the Trump Organization made $802 million from crypto during the first half of 2025, overwhelming the family’s income from its traditional businesses like real estate, licensing deals and golf clubs, which together made up only $62 million over the same period."
Bitcoin is money from nothing and the mother of all scams, so it's perfect for Trump... just a figment of the imagination.
Yes, of course he's going to take advantage of his position. However, speaking to JB's point and mine, if we otherwise had a functioning, non-corrupt government, that is, the other two "co-equal" branches, this would never have happened.
To them, that's not that much. I can't believe I'm writing that, but (and I know nothing about this) if it's in crypto, they won't have it for long. The Saudis will bail Trump out.
According to the article in all you all's fave NYT: Saudi Arabia's Prince Has Big Plans, but His Giant Fund is Low on Cash. So maybe Trumpy gets bailed out, but all of the suits that traveled there licking a$$ have been told they need to do an Argentina-level bail out to get half the funds back they give to save wonder boy's genius investments made with his country's sovereign wealth funds.
They tried to, but they failed to imagine the confluence of a corrupt executive, corrupt and compliant congress and corrupt SCOTUS simultaneously. They couldn't imagine that happening, because it seems so far fetched. But here we are. That's why all those checks and balances utterly failed us.
For sure. The framers certainly couldn't imagine mass media, much less the internet. Hell, they didn't even have light bulbs yet. And to them "arms" meant muskets, not AR15s.
It’s something nobody’s ever seen before! I call it “apocalypse”—it’s a very old-fashioned word that nobody uses anymore. Big apocalypse, strong apocalypse, tears running down…. 🏇🏇🏇🏇
Putin helps him to do this, by influencing Trump's decisions. That so called "Peace" plan with Ukraine and Russia was nothing but throwing Ukraine, Europe and the US citizens under the bus.
Awesome musical coda. I’m happy to share that my corporate employer published an article yesterday, internally, saying that Tariffs pose a challenge to our economy! OMG … if only we knew the root cause!
Crypto is perfect for the Trump years: Created out of nothing with no inherent value--just worth what the conmen behind it can convince the rubes to pay for it. It's the blockchain of our time, the tulips of the 2020s, the Beanie Babies of today. And it's somehow fitting that America's Greatest Conman is both in on the grift AND making the entire country a victim of the grift.
Foremost, it shows that you can become a billionaire or even a trillionaire by doing absolutely nothing. Tech bros should thus shut it up. A product with no utility, no advertising, nothing. Yet its value rises from zero to trillions…
During the dot.com debacle, I was working for a firm that was big into tech investing for our clients. On the way up, it was really exciting and the claims that we had reached some "new paradigm" in investing was on everyone's lips and in everyone's ears. Of course, when the air current that was supporting this market lost lift, companies began to fail overnight and we literally could not act fast enough to stem the losses in our client's accounts. The problem was made even worse as many clients simply did not believe what their eyes could see and refused to sell while their assets still had some value.
There is always the temptation in investing to claim that "this time is different" and crypto has all the earmarks of being yet another investment fad that will inevitably turn out to be lead, rather than gold. Unfortunately, the same will not be true for the sponsors of many crypto coins who will still have the dollars that investors eagerly gave them, long after the coins they purchased has lost all or most of their value.
Normal investing is tough enough under the best of circumstances, but crypto seems too much like gambling, in which the odds of any return on investment favor the house.
The key to gold rush-like booms is to get into business selling picks and shovels and dungarees. In the case of the dot.com bubble that included website support software and other internet infrastructure.
Make no mistake, Taco’s knee-jerk, vicious, reflex death threat to those reminding our military of their oath to uphold the Constitution even above illegal orders, is proof positive that he has serious, high priority ( to him) plans to misuse the military to seize power.
Bitcoin has been around for 16 years. Can anyone tell me a good use case for crypto thus far? Money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, sex & drug trafficking are NOT good uses of this technology. Go ahead: ask ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude. I'm sure someone has the answer.
It was supposed to be a currency whose value and supply can't be manipulated by governments. Efforts to ban it were expected, but instead (surprise!) it got assimilated by the Borg and is now just another investment commodity, a scarcity-based store of value, i.e. "digital gold." As such, it can be manipulated, e.g. pump-and-dump.
Last week you were an idiot if you didn't own crypto, this week, you are an idiot if you do own that crap. I am with you Prof. Krugman, it's a scam and a method for hiding criminal profits.
Price is what you pay, value is what you get. The price of BTC is there on a screen for all to see, but its value? No one knows... somewhere between zero and infinity...
There's one teenie advantage to crypto mining compared to regular data centers (plain cloud or AI). Data centers have "Service Level Agreements" (SLAs). As Amazon proved a whole ago, Bad things happen when cloud services stop working.
Crypto miners, on the other hand, really don't give a shit about service. If grid operators pay them to not use the power they've contracted to use during a usage peak, it's an easy (low capital) way to ride out a peak
That is the *only* good thing about crypto mining, otherwise, I rank crypto up with pestilence and pandemic
Crypto sites shutting down are more a reflection of the *difference* between ambient crypto-mining income and spikes in electricity prices, not an indication that crypto mining doesn't pay in its own right.
When my 12-year-old son asked me to buy $100 in bit coins for about a dollar each, I did a quick check on the legality of the apparent scam. The likelihood of it eventually being declared illegal and fraught with criminal enterprise just seemed too likely, otherwise I would have bought $1000 worth. Sigh, one of my doctors did buy $1000 worth of the German version and is now very wealthy. He asked me what he should do. I asked him what he enjoyed most. He said surgery (but he is also certified to install air conditioners in case of another pandemic), so I recommended continuing to do surgery. He is still a brilliant surgeon with a robust practice.
I still think the scam potential is too big to ignore.
Rumor: "just desserts"- Some servers in Charlotte, NC are giving ICE agents chocolate desserts to end their meals. It's Ex-Lax...
Only one man can destroy the US economy like Trump can
And then only when one half of congress and two thirds of the supreme court subjugate themselves to him.
The framers never saw that coming.
Sure, but why wouldn't he? Personally, he's been profiting handsomely. What does he care, so long as he makes money?
"Reuters calculated that the Trump Organization made $802 million from crypto during the first half of 2025, overwhelming the family’s income from its traditional businesses like real estate, licensing deals and golf clubs, which together made up only $62 million over the same period."
Bitcoin is money from nothing and the mother of all scams, so it's perfect for Trump... just a figment of the imagination.
Yes, of course he's going to take advantage of his position. However, speaking to JB's point and mine, if we otherwise had a functioning, non-corrupt government, that is, the other two "co-equal" branches, this would never have happened.
You are correct. Congress could have stopped this bullshit at any time, starting on Day 1.
Absolutely, along with at least two of the SCOTUS Gang of Six.
Please remember you are talking about Democrats saving the situation. Highly implausible.
Implausible but not impossible.
To them, that's not that much. I can't believe I'm writing that, but (and I know nothing about this) if it's in crypto, they won't have it for long. The Saudis will bail Trump out.
According to the article in all you all's fave NYT: Saudi Arabia's Prince Has Big Plans, but His Giant Fund is Low on Cash. So maybe Trumpy gets bailed out, but all of the suits that traveled there licking a$$ have been told they need to do an Argentina-level bail out to get half the funds back they give to save wonder boy's genius investments made with his country's sovereign wealth funds.
"Democracy...if you can keep it."
They tried to, but they failed to imagine the confluence of a corrupt executive, corrupt and compliant congress and corrupt SCOTUS simultaneously. They couldn't imagine that happening, because it seems so far fetched. But here we are. That's why all those checks and balances utterly failed us.
Do not overlook the media, especially *resentment* media, that programmed the nonsense that got voters to choose a convicted fraudster for President.
For sure. The framers certainly couldn't imagine mass media, much less the internet. Hell, they didn't even have light bulbs yet. And to them "arms" meant muskets, not AR15s.
After the GOP groomed him for decades.
Loomered him?
And Russia.
It's the greatest destruction ever.
It’s something nobody’s ever seen before! I call it “apocalypse”—it’s a very old-fashioned word that nobody uses anymore. Big apocalypse, strong apocalypse, tears running down…. 🏇🏇🏇🏇
Sir, many people have said, this is the greatest apocalypse we have ever seen...
We call it priming the apocalypse pump - no one’s ever heard of it before….
They’re saying it with tears in their eyes!
After they say, "Sir! This is the biggest and best apocalypse we have ever seen!"
Well, like magnets, nobody really understands it. Might be a foreign language
The biggest! The bestest! It's yuuuuuuuuggggeeeee!
Even without the aid of Elon's chainsaw.
He switched to MBS’s bonesaw.
No Ketamine, Ecstasy or magic mushrooms required.
Yes, Elon was in greater danger of injuring himself ... Bonesaw however is much more skilled at the art of death.
Think of the long term effects of those chaperoned
"I and I alone ..." Indeed.
That’s Trump! Self destructing implosion on Big Mac skid marks!
Putin helps him to do this, by influencing Trump's decisions. That so called "Peace" plan with Ukraine and Russia was nothing but throwing Ukraine, Europe and the US citizens under the bus.
Awesome musical coda. I’m happy to share that my corporate employer published an article yesterday, internally, saying that Tariffs pose a challenge to our economy! OMG … if only we knew the root cause!
The King has no Clothes!
Yak So is Stormy Daniels right about his tiny pecker?
Small businesses have taken it on the chin, and many are down for the count.
My employer sells a lot of insurance to small businesses … and we’re not the cheapest either
Crypto is perfect for the Trump years: Created out of nothing with no inherent value--just worth what the conmen behind it can convince the rubes to pay for it. It's the blockchain of our time, the tulips of the 2020s, the Beanie Babies of today. And it's somehow fitting that America's Greatest Conman is both in on the grift AND making the entire country a victim of the grift.
Foremost, it shows that you can become a billionaire or even a trillionaire by doing absolutely nothing. Tech bros should thus shut it up. A product with no utility, no advertising, nothing. Yet its value rises from zero to trillions…
During the dot.com debacle, I was working for a firm that was big into tech investing for our clients. On the way up, it was really exciting and the claims that we had reached some "new paradigm" in investing was on everyone's lips and in everyone's ears. Of course, when the air current that was supporting this market lost lift, companies began to fail overnight and we literally could not act fast enough to stem the losses in our client's accounts. The problem was made even worse as many clients simply did not believe what their eyes could see and refused to sell while their assets still had some value.
There is always the temptation in investing to claim that "this time is different" and crypto has all the earmarks of being yet another investment fad that will inevitably turn out to be lead, rather than gold. Unfortunately, the same will not be true for the sponsors of many crypto coins who will still have the dollars that investors eagerly gave them, long after the coins they purchased has lost all or most of their value.
Normal investing is tough enough under the best of circumstances, but crypto seems too much like gambling, in which the odds of any return on investment favor the house.
The key to gold rush-like booms is to get into business selling picks and shovels and dungarees. In the case of the dot.com bubble that included website support software and other internet infrastructure.
When I first heard about crypto, I just laughed and walked away.
When I first heard about crypto, I kept saying, "Wait, explain that to me again."
Make no mistake, Taco’s knee-jerk, vicious, reflex death threat to those reminding our military of their oath to uphold the Constitution even above illegal orders, is proof positive that he has serious, high priority ( to him) plans to misuse the military to seize power.
Enjoy your posts ; loved the coda
No argument from me!
Heartedly agree! Thanks for all your updates; short or wonky
Along with Carl Hiaasen.
Along with his long-time writing partner and guitarist, Mike Campbell. :)
Actually, Bo Diddley and Nancy Luca are the better guitarists. Petty would agree.
Derek Trucks is the greatest guitarist from Florida.
"Answer: What fundamentals?"
I love it!
Bingo!
It's nice to know that you're fully human by keeping in touch.
Bitcoin has been around for 16 years. Can anyone tell me a good use case for crypto thus far? Money laundering, tax evasion, fraud, sex & drug trafficking are NOT good uses of this technology. Go ahead: ask ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude. I'm sure someone has the answer.
Only one on the list I think of to add is terrorism.
Buying illegal weapons?
It was supposed to be a currency whose value and supply can't be manipulated by governments. Efforts to ban it were expected, but instead (surprise!) it got assimilated by the Borg and is now just another investment commodity, a scarcity-based store of value, i.e. "digital gold." As such, it can be manipulated, e.g. pump-and-dump.
Money laundering, tax evasion, and fraud are GREAT uses of this technology. And you left out RANSOMWARE!
“I'm gonna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna leave this world for a while
Now I'm free, free fallin'” - Tom Petty
If only we really COULD leave this world for a while…
Perfect song choice Dr. Krugman!
Kevin Hassett alert. Kevin keeps tell us construction employment is soaring but the data says otherwise:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USCONS
8.3 million as of March 2025. 8.3 million now.
Hassert lies as easily as he breathes ...
Being able to lie like you breathe is a requirement for being in this Administration.
Hassett and Bessent should both have their economist licenses revoked. If only economists were required to be licensed.
A very simple investment strategy I follow is if I don't understand it - don't buy it. It has served me well.
Last week you were an idiot if you didn't own crypto, this week, you are an idiot if you do own that crap. I am with you Prof. Krugman, it's a scam and a method for hiding criminal profits.
'Downtown' Josh Brown recently wrote a piece summarizing the head-scratching insanity.
https://www.downtownjoshbrown.com/p/the-cure-for-fomo-is-time?utm_source=www.downtownjoshbrown.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-cure-for-fomo-is-time&_bhlid=112f517e5327fca9755af83947fea72c6463076b
Great coda, Paul. Thanks for making time to post after a long flight.
Great coda Paul. Maybe Donny has finally - finally - crossed a line.
Perhaps culmination of many lines crossed .. to many to normalize
nah
how many lines is that so far ?
too many!
Price is what you pay, value is what you get. The price of BTC is there on a screen for all to see, but its value? No one knows... somewhere between zero and infinity...
There's one teenie advantage to crypto mining compared to regular data centers (plain cloud or AI). Data centers have "Service Level Agreements" (SLAs). As Amazon proved a whole ago, Bad things happen when cloud services stop working.
Crypto miners, on the other hand, really don't give a shit about service. If grid operators pay them to not use the power they've contracted to use during a usage peak, it's an easy (low capital) way to ride out a peak
That is the *only* good thing about crypto mining, otherwise, I rank crypto up with pestilence and pandemic
Crypto sites shutting down are more a reflection of the *difference* between ambient crypto-mining income and spikes in electricity prices, not an indication that crypto mining doesn't pay in its own right.
When my 12-year-old son asked me to buy $100 in bit coins for about a dollar each, I did a quick check on the legality of the apparent scam. The likelihood of it eventually being declared illegal and fraught with criminal enterprise just seemed too likely, otherwise I would have bought $1000 worth. Sigh, one of my doctors did buy $1000 worth of the German version and is now very wealthy. He asked me what he should do. I asked him what he enjoyed most. He said surgery (but he is also certified to install air conditioners in case of another pandemic), so I recommended continuing to do surgery. He is still a brilliant surgeon with a robust practice.
I still think the scam potential is too big to ignore.
Rumor: "just desserts"- Some servers in Charlotte, NC are giving ICE agents chocolate desserts to end their meals. It's Ex-Lax...
Jane Hathaway asked Jethro Bodine his occupation: brain surgeon by day & short order fry cook at night.