Original Title: Teapot Dome. Watergate. They're Nothing Compared to This.

Original Author: Jacob Silverman (Author of "Golden Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley")

Original Translation: Kaori, Peggy, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: In American political history, no president has intertwined national power, personal brand, and financial speculation on a global scale quite like Trump.

The fusion of money and power is nothing new, but when this fusion takes the form of a "token," when a head of state's image is minted into a tradable asset, when political influence can freely flow on the blockchain, what we face is no longer traditional corruption but a systemic reconfiguration.

The article documents not a single scandal but a paradigm shift: the president is no longer just a political figure but the largest HODLer in a decentralized economy; diplomatic relations are no longer achieved through discreet negotiations but through linked wallet addresses. Technology, once seen as a safeguard of transparency and fairness, may now become a new power broker.

As cryptocurrency enters the White House, as the digital shadow of the dollar intertwines with national will, we must reconsider a fundamental question: Do the boundaries of power still exist in this era of "on-chain sovereignty"?

Below is the original content.

The Power's New Wallet: How Cryptocurrency Entered the White House

If you were an authoritarian leader trying to influence another head of state, you might gift them a luxuriously appointed Boeing 747 jet; you might indulge in their hotels or invest in the many businesses owned by them and their children; you might even purchase their branded sneakers, NFTs, and other merchandise.

But in the case of President Trump, potential "power brokers" have a more diverse menu of options.

However, today, all of these seem superfluous.

During his campaign, Trump announced his own cryptocurrency initiative—World Liberty Financial—and launched a "meme coin" named after himself just days before taking office. Anyone who buys the token of World Liberty indirectly channels funds to the Trump family business. Through a crypto project controlled by the president, his son, and family friends, the Trump family has amassed billions of dollars in nominal wealth.

World Liberty has become a powerful avenue of influence: Anyone — whether it's you, me, or a prince of the UAE — simply by purchasing the company's issued tokens, can make Trump's wallet bulge.

The key lies in this "convenience." For those seeking influence, suitcases full of cash and Swiss bank accounts have been replaced by cryptocurrency tokens that can be quickly transferred between wallets and exchanges. And more sophisticated crypto users — nation-state actors, hacker groups, money laundering syndicates — can use tools like "mixers" to obfuscate transaction traces.

It is this convenience that has made cryptocurrency the preferred tool of criminal organizations and sanctions evaders.

The Illusion of Transparency: When Corruption Happens in the Name of "Decentralization"

This is unprecedented in American political history.

Looking back at past government scandals — from corrupt aides around President Grant, to the Teapot Dome scandal of the Harding era involving an oil lease bribe, to Nixon's Watergate affair — none have seen anything like Trump, who so extensively conflated personal and government interests, nor has anyone profited so immensely from it.

There is nothing innovative here; the truly "novel" aspect lies solely in the current president openly using his name, image, and social media influence to promote a cryptocurrency token that is almost indistinguishable from the myriad other products on the market. To MAGA supporters and ordinary speculators, buying these tokens may mean risking "everything they have"; and a president leading political supporters into such a high-risk investment is itself condemnable behavior.

But the greater risk is that powerful foreign interests may use this as a conduit to funnel vast sums of money to Trump.

For any head of state, purchasing Trump's tokens or investing in his crypto projects has become a direct political speculation.

This is precisely the perverse incentive created by the "Trump Crypto Donation Box."

Illustrating this are two recent multibillion-dollar transactions involving one of the most influential figures in the UAE, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff:

In the first transaction, a state-owned investment fund led by Tahnoon pledged to invest $20 billion worth of a USD-pegged stablecoin (issued by World Liberty Financial) in the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. (A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value and serve as a "digital dollar" substitute.)

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