Meme coin.....

'Obvious naked grift': Newsom announces controversial meme coin

The governor's announcement comes as the Trump family is making millions off cryptocurrencies

By Lester Black

Gov. Gavin Newsom has gone all in with his impersonations of President Donald Trump — blustering in all-caps internet messages, name-calling his opponents and even hawking branded bibles (intentionally perpetually sold out) and MAGA-inspired hats online. In perhaps his most Trumpian move yet, Newsom’s latest online scheme could leave his supporters losing money.

Newsom announced last week that he is planning on launching his own meme coin, a type of digital currency whose value is largely based on internet hype and which is widely panned as a scam. Newsom first introduced the idea at a policy conference hosted by Politico, and in a podcast published two days later, he told Kara Swisher, the host of the “Pivot” podcast from the New York magazine, that he’d be launching the coin in an effort to highlight Trump’s corruption. (Trump and his family have launched multiple meme coins) 

“Wow, you’re doing a coin. Of course you are,” Swisher replied after Newsom mentioned the idea. The governor responded, “We’re just trying to turn up the heat,” and said it would be called the Trump Corruption Coin. (“That’s a little long,” Swisher quipped in response.)

Yet despite Newsom’s proclamation that his effort would be for a noble cause — “This is one of the great grifters of our time,” he said of the president, adding that “none of this is normal” and the coin would be a way to underscore that — cryptocurrency experts aren’t so sure Newsom’s joke would be victimless.

David Gerard, an author and expert on cryptocurrency, said the governor’s move would do little to bring more regulation to the meme coin world or stop Trump from engaging in the activity.

“Newsom doing a meme coin won’t highlight problems any more than a Newsom pickpocketing ring would highlight the problem of pickpockets,” Gerard said in an email to SFGATE. “You can’t do a grift and say you were being ironic.” 

Meme coins can be created by anyone and are often designed to build off an internet trend or meme. They can spike in value, reaching billions of dollars in market share based almost entirely on online hype, only to crater and become worthless just as fast. Meme coin creators often try to hype up their cryptocurrency to increase its worth and then sell their holdings before the price falls. The original meme coin, Dogecoin, was embraced by Elon Musk and ultimately became the namesake of his bureaucracy-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, while a more recent example is $HAWK, the coin launched by Haliey Welch after she became viral online as “Hawk Tuah Girl.”

Newsom did not respond to SFGATE’s questions regarding when the coin will be launched or if he or his family will own any of the coin. Hannah Milgrom, Newsom’s political spokesperson, instead directed attention to Trump’s cryptocurrency endeavors.

“We look forward [to] Donald Trump coming clean about his corruption coin grift and returning the billions he’s [amassed] in the process,” Milgrom wrote in a statement shared with SFGATE.

Trump and his family have launched numerous cryptocurrency schemes since he took office the first time, creating conflicts of interest. The $TRUMP coin, launched in January, has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for his family, according to the New York Times; there is also a $MELANIA coin, and, as of Monday, a $WLFI coin, modeled off of the president’s World Liberty Financial crypto company. Trump’s own stake in $WLFI is worth over $3.4 billion, making it the largest source of his wealth, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

Trump has also mingled the government with his crypto business, directing his administration to deregulate the crypto industry by blocking investigations into companies and disbanding an enforcement team that is charged with investigating businesses like his. The Trump family’s World Liberty Financial is staffed by Eric Trump, the president’s son, and Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s Middle East advisor. Abu Dhabi later invested $2 billion in one of Trump’s coins. The president has also offered direct access to his presidency for the largest investors in his coin, allowing people the opportunity to lobby the government by paying Trump unlimited sums of secret money.

Ethics experts have said Trump is engaging in corruption by using his public office to make money for himself and his family. Larry Noble, a former election commissioner and attorney, told the Guardian in a story published in May that the president’s cryptocurrency dealings “appear to present the greatest conflicts of interest and avenues for corruption any president has ever embraced.”

At a policy summit hosted by Politico last week, Newsom told the crowd he wants to launch his coin “sooner than later.” In the podcast interview with Swisher, Newsom engaged in the same kind of blustering promotion that often precedes a meme coin’s launch: “Donald Trump, we’ll see how well your coin does versus our coin.” 

Gerard said this stunt wouldn’t actually do anything meaningful for regulating the wild cryptocurrency world. 

“A Newsom meme coin is just [an] ill-advised idea. Meme coins attempt to print money out of thin air,” Gerard said. “A Newsom coin won’t reverse anything bad about the current meme coin economy — it’s already an obvious naked grift.”