I’ve known Chris Murphy for 2 decades, since he was in the Connecticut legislature. He was never a radical or an extremist, always pretty much a garden variety Connecticut Democrat. When he was elected to Congress, he joined the New Dems. Two things have driven him left recently. First and foremost is Trump’s dogmatic bigotry-fueled approach to authoritarian governance. But I’m guessing he’s also moving left to give himself a better chance to out-maneuver other potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, corporate-aligned centrists like Kamala, Pete Buttigieg, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, Andy Beshear…
He’s been introducing himself to Democratic voters by writing much better screeds than most of the other potential candidates. Like this one on crypto-corruption he sent out last week: “The scale of corruption in Trump’s White House has been stunning and unprecedented,” he wrote. “Trump sells access, charging $5 million for corporate CEOs who want to meet with him. Elon Musk cancels contracts for his competitors and awards them to himself. Charges are dropped against corrupt politicians as long as the politicians pledge personal loyalty to Trump. The scope of the graft is without precedent.”
But there is a clear winner when it comes to the contest for the worst of the corruption: the Trump crypto coin, and the alliance between Trump and the crypto industry. It’s all just a shameless scheme for Trump to legalize large scale bribery, and shockingly, very few people seem to have taken notice.
For most people, the crypto industry is an enigma. Ordinary Americans don’t understand and don’t try to understand it. That’s exactly why Trump knew it would be the perfect way to launder money into his pocket.
First, let’s rewind the timeline a little. The crypto industry was furious that the Biden administration didn’t let them run wild. Instead, the SEC and DOJ were cracking down on fraud, scams, and theft, which made it a lot harder for these billionaires to continue their get-rich-quick schemes.
Everyone knows Donald Trump can be bought, and the 2024 election was the perfect opportunity for the crypto industry to get someone in the White House who would let them continue to abuse the public. The industry poured $130 million into Trump’s campaign, and when he did, they started cashing in.
Almost immediately, investigations into major cryptocurrency firms have been halted. Lawsuits over crypto fraud dropped. And then, this weekend, Trump announced a new national crypto reserve, declaring “I will make sure the U.S. is the Crypto Capital of the World.” The reserve is basically a vehicle to use the government to prop up the industry - using public resources to put money into the hands of crypto billionaires.
But that’s not the worst of it. No, the real grift is the Trump “meme coin”, which enables a kind of legalized presidential money laundering of a scale and scope never before seen in America.
Right before the inauguration, Trump launched his own ‘meme coin’ called $TRUMP. It’s a digital asset with a value tied to, well, nothing, other than the popularity of Trump himself. It has no independent value. Its price is just a function of demand. If a lot of people want it, its price goes up. If nobody wants it, its price plummets.
Trump knew his MAGA supporters, wild with enthusiasm during the inauguration, would buy up a ton of the worthless coin. It worked. When prices jumped from 18 cents to $75 apiece, his net worth, on paper, swelled to more than $56 billion. And when it fell back down to $17, where it sits today, many of his supporters who bought at the top lost actual real money. He duped his followers into buying the coin (with its real value of $0) at its highest price, knowing it was going to crash.
Trump doesn’t need to care about the fluctuation of the cost because he gets a transaction fee every time coin trades are made. The Trump family made $100 million just in trading fees, while many of his supporters have lost thousands of dollars.
But the real scam is not the transaction fees. No, it’s the way that the coin can be inflated in value, at key moments, to allow Trump to swell his fortune. Trump held back 80% of the coin, and he will put more up for sale when the price once again spikes. And how does the price spike, allowing Trump to cash in with an additional release of the coin? Well, all it takes is a few Russian oligarchs or billionaire CEOs to buy a large quantity of coin (therefore increasing net demand) for the price to rise.
You might think, surely, that’s illegal for a foreign government or a CEO to manipulate the Trump coin market to enrich Trump. Amazingly, it is not! There is nothing stopping a Russian oligarch, a Saudi prince, or an oil company’s CEO from buying $TRUMP to put money directly into Trump’s pocket. And guess what, we aren’t even yet to the worst part.
The biggest scam is that we will never know who is buying the Trump coin to inflate the price and put cash into Trump’s pocket, because the buyers of the coin are secret! So it’s essentially a private conduit for bribery. Billionaires with business before the U.S. government can buy coin in order to make Trump rich, and then whisper to Trump that they need a favor. And the American people would never know.
As an example, in the first minute of trading, one buyer purchased around 6 million tokens of Trump coin, sending the price through the roof. Two days later, the buyer sold off the entire supply for a profit of more than $100 million. Trump likely made money off those transactions, but we have no idea who the mystery buyer was. Reporting suggests the buyer was likely operating out of... wait for it... China.
It doesn’t stop there. When Trump cashes out, he’s not doing it through a mainstream exchange. He’s doing it through unregulated Chinese exchanges. Why? Because he’s got something to hide - either the sources of the money or the people connected to him that are getting the payments - and faces much less scrutiny by conducting his business on Chinese exchanges.
So, while Trump’s meme coin may seem like some silly, hard-to-understand online fad, it could end up being the most insidious tools of corruption in the history of the presidency. The whole scheme is akin to Trump posting his Venmo or CashApp handle and inviting corporate interests and foreign governments to send him funds. Just in secret.
Trump’s crypto scams are just further proof that this administration doesn’t give a crap about you or helping our communities. The only thing they care about is making money for Trump and his billionaire friends.
Murphy isn’t alone among Democrats talking about this though. Elizabeth Warren, for example, has long been a somewhat effective crypto skeptic, warning about its risks to consumers and potential for corruption, noting that Trump’s crypto push is about “conning [Americans] out of their savings to juice the value of crypto tokens for himself and his family.” Jamie Raskin, a constitutional scholar, has flagged the $TRUMP coin as an end-run around campaign finance laws, noting that it’s “an opportunity for an interested donor to put millions or billions of dollars in the possession of a politician.” As the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, Maxine Waters has criticized Trump’s crypto moves as unethical. In January 2025, alongside Rep. Gerry Connolly, she called for a probe into Trump’s financial conflicts of interest, including his crypto ventures.
What sets Murphy apart from the others is his synthesis of the issue into a digestible, damning story— calling the $TRUMP coin “the most insidious tool of corruption in the history of the presidency”— and his relentless amplification across platforms including the Senate floor. He’s not just reacting; he’s proactively shaping the narrative. Other than Elizabeth Warren few Democrats— and no potential 2028 presidential candidate— match his clarity or volume. The other contenders seem to be either in wait-and-see mode or prioritizing issues with wider resonance (economy, healthcare, Trump’s culture wars). Murphy’s crypto-corruption push stands out as a proactive, detailed attack— none of these others have matched it. For now, Murphy’s got the lane mostly to himself.
Given their approach to Trump's speech, had Schumer and Jeffries been on the deck of the Titanic on 4/15/12, they would have made sure that the ship’s band was playing appropriate selections. They clearly have their priorities in order.
ANY Dem--Murphy, Bernie, Pritzker, AOC, Green--willing to stand up and fight at this stage is worth his/her weight in gold.
When Grant was criticized after the battle of Shiloh and people were demanding that Grant be removed, Lincoln said “ I can't spare this man. He fights.”
The Dems have far too many McClellans and far too few Grants today.
Fingers crossed for Murphy. Keep it up please! His stance is sorely needed and required.