“Today’s Outrage” is a new feature. Since January 20, outrages at the federal level have been coming so thick and fast that trying to absorb them has been like trying to drink from a fire hydrant.
We thought we’d try to slow things down, and focus on one at a time. These articles are in-depth, meant to provide you with a solid understanding versus memes.
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TODAY’S OUTRAGE: $TRUMP AND CYPTO
Why might a person want to buy crypto?
For some of us oldsters, the word “crypto,” short for cryptocurrency, provokes bewilderment. Crypto is money that isn’t money, that replaces money, is sort of money but, conspicuously, has no country’s name on it. It isn’t dollars, or pounds, or euros, or yen, or yuan, or anything else you can obtain as a difficult-to-counterfeit piece of paper. It’s money that isn’t issued or backed by a government. Which, to ancients like myself, makes it sound as if it isn’t really money at all.
Let’s stay with that for a moment. In what way is crypto different from something – let’s call them $Adams, after Adam Smith – which I could design in Microsoft Publisher, adorn with a picture of Adam Smith’s face (or mine, for that matter: my hairstyle is more flattering), and crank out on my Hewlett-Packard printer? Actually, even that analogy is too crude, because crypto doesn’t need paper. Perhaps the better comparison is that crypto is whatever numbers I decide to insert into Row 12 of an Excel spreadsheet. Congratulate me: I made a lot of money today. Cell C12 is looking especially promising.
Well, you’re thinking, there must be more to it than that, right? Crypto has to be something beyond a number which some idiot picks out of the air. And you’re right. A unit of crypto isn’t just a colorfully-decorated piece of copier paper, or somebody’s eight-digit birthday merged and centered. It has to do with a blockchain.
I can already hear the cries from my fellow residents at the assisted-living facility: what, in the name of my rapidly-diminishing sentience, is a blockchain? According to my main source of fiscal expertise, Wikipedia, “a blockchain is a decentralized, distributed, and often public, digital ledger consisting of records called blocks that are used to record transactions across many computers so that any involved block cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks.”
After puzzling for a while over that limpid prose, I believe I can translate: a blockchain is a row of numbers on a spreadsheet, but a spreadsheet which no one can edit, because it would have to be changed simultaneously on a gazillion different computers, each of which is rather crafty and well-protected (“encrypted”). One might say that a blockchain is a spreadsheet whose past is
carved in granite.
Okay, well, at least that means someone can’t use the backspace key to make himself a millionaire. But what makes those rows of any value? As near as I can tell, the full and complete answer is, somebody agrees to buy them.
Let us again pause. In some sense, the only reason anything has value, or at least monetary value, is because somebody agrees to buy it. That is true of my vintage muscle car. It is true of my eight hours of labor. It is true of my house. Those things have value because they have a market. But, you may object, people buy my muscle car because they want to drive it, or at least admire it on their lawn. They buy my labor because they believe, foolishly, that it accomplishes something. They buy my house because they don’t like sleeping outdoors. Such things can be said to have intrinsic value: they’re of some sort of use. One can’t really say that about a row of numbers on a spreadsheet, even a granite spreadsheet.
But, as the economics students among you may have realized, that’s in a way true about all money, right? No vending machine accepts a quarter because of the artistic quality of the relief of George Washington. No Vegas Blackjack dealer accepts a $100 bill because he loves the story about Ben Franklin and the kite. Coins and paper currency are of value because we all agree to say they are. Somehow, long before we were born, an agreement was reached, and items not particularly valuable in themselves – bits of metal, pieces of paper – became valuable by agreement. There are exceptions to that rule – go try to buy some milk with Confederate dollars– but for the most part, we have agreed to say that money is money, which has made all of our lives more manageable. I no longer have to drive my heifer to the market to exchange it for heads of lettuce. My neighbor takes paper, and possibly Venmo.
If that’s how things work, however, crypto is at a significant disadvantage, because it is not hallowed by tradition. (Neither is Venmo, but, well, it says it’s giving you dollars, and seems to do so. It’s more like the mail than like currency.) Crypto hasn’t been used since the dawn of civilization; it’s an upstart, and what’s its pedigree? Who came up with it? Who are these people, and why should I accept something they say is money? Why are they even bothering with those blockchains (which I still don’t really understand)? It’s not as if we don’t already have something to spend. Money exists. It is accepted. Crypto is not a brilliant innovation which saves me the bother of wrangling my heifer. That innovation came along a while back. Crypto just – well, what does it do, anyway? Why would anyone prefer it to what we’ve already got?
A key feature seems to be that it isn’t issued by a government: it isn’t issued by anything but cyberspace. And if you personally would prefer to live, not under a government, but as an untrammeled individual in cyberspace – it’s the
libertarian ideal, carried to an extreme. The government doesn’t get to put its grubby fingers all over my transactions. That’s between me and some other guy who’s good at coding. Dollars? We don’t need no stinkin’ dollars.
But this gets tricky, of course, because when I actually go to the grocery store, they don’t take crypto. People have tried to persuade them to do so, notably in El Salvador, where Trump’s friend President Bukele tried to make bitcoin an official currency, but they did not succeed, because normal people don’t want the stuff. It turns out that grocery stores prefer to live under a government, which does come with certain advantages: your government is useful if someone tries to rob you, or if a tsunami floods your parking lot. While people love to complain about government, few of them, deep down, want to do without it. If the government didn’t build roads and put in stoplights, we couldn’t drive our muscle cars. If the government didn’t guarantee bank deposits, we might, like Wiley Coyote, suddenly look down and see that our savings were standing on air. I can’t really get away with saying, “I am the law.” Too many of my neighbors would beg to differ.
So, to return to my opening question, why might a person want to buy crypto? Crypto enthusiasts say it “streamlines transactions,” i.e. makes money transfers quicker, but of course in the modern world, money transfers are already pretty darn fast. What other advantages does crypto have? At this point, the main answers seem to be, (a) if you want to speculate, and (b) if you want to break the law.
Concerning (a): It’s amazing what people will buy if they think it might make them rich. From tulips in seventeenth-century Holland to Beanie Babies in the 1990s U.S., people will buy almost anything if they believe its price is destined to go up. Such bubbles tend to pop, of course, as has already happened with crypto several times, most notoriously with FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried.
Concerning (b): Is crypto as intrinsically worthless as Beanie Babies? Not if you’re a criminal. If you want to dodge taxes, or launder drug money, or acquire children for sexual purposes, crypto is convenient, because it can be bought under pseudonyms, and has multiple clever ways to evade scrutiny. A rigorous government regulator could probably break through that thicket, but if the government – or any government: one can park one’s piece of cyberspace anywhere, after all – does not choose to put in the effort … In a possibly related story, crypto may be convenient if you wish to bribe a politician.
In September 2024, Donald Trump and his sons founded World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm. This was already peculiar, because traditionally presidents do not found new companies, but sell off their old ones and place their assets into blind trusts. That’s what Jimmy Carter did with his peanut farm. He did not want people wondering whether the federal government would try to drive up the price of peanuts.
So far, World Liberty has offered four “products” (when it comes to crypto, I can’t hold back the air quotes): WLF1, a digital “coin” of which it has sold $550 million; $Trump and $Melania, two “meme-coins” (crypto products which – I’m not making this up – begin as Internet jokes: people buy them because they think they’re kind of funny); and a new “stablecoin,” USD1, each of which is supposed to maintain a stable value of one U.S. dollar. One might pause especially over that latter: what makes a USD1 different from, say, a dollar? As near as I can tell, the only real distinction is that you can buy it from Donald Trump. He thanks you for your business. 75% of World Liberty’s revenues go directly to the Trump family, and according to a recent report by a watchdog group, World Liberty Financial has increased the president’s net worth by about $2.9 billion.
People have raised a number of issues concerning World Liberty Financial. One is that, because of all the scandals – Bankman-Fried, etc. – the U.S. government had been moving towards stricter regulation of crypto, but the Trump Administration now seems to be scuttling those efforts, which, since the Trump family has entered the crypto business, might seem, um, like a conflict of interest.
The other issue is, if I want to make the president of the United States extremely grateful to me, all I have to do is buy $Trump coins, or WLF1, or USD1, or perhaps $Melania coins, depending on how the First Couple is getting along that day. Such purchases would, apparently, be legal, or at least legal-ish, which will suffice in the current regulatory climate, in which the emoluments clause of the Constitution is treated like a dead letter. Those purchases would not have an amount limit, the way campaign contributions do. They would be open to any investor, foreign or domestic. And they might be a particularly attractive investment for a country which wants to avoid being tariffed. In the past, nations trading with the U.S. strove to obtain Most Favored Nation status. Perhaps there are now new roads to that.
When Trump first ran for office, some of his supporters said that unlike the rest of those politicians, he wouldn’t be for sale, because he was so rich he wouldn’t have to be. Since then, of course, we’ve learned two things: (1) He wasn’t nearly as rich as he claimed – in fact, his finances have often been extremely precarious; and (2) He is the sort of person who can never have enough. The more money you have, the more of a winner you are, and Donald Trump must always be a – must always be the – winner. Why might a person want to buy crypto? To assist him in that project.
Is the swamp drained yet?
TODAY’S WIN: HARVARD FIGHTS BACK
Now that is how you defeat tyranny. Not with fear, or panic, but with knowledge. With clarity. With truth. And with stories of hope.” (Letters from God)
Starting in April of 2024 over 60 colleges have had student led protests with over 3,100 arrests. The protests have been nonviolent, with students primarily occupying campus spaces. Protesters have generally been focused on demanding that universities, American businesses, and the government divest themselves of financial involvement with Israel; as well as stopping all U.S. military support. Their goal is for Israeli troops to withdraw from Gaza and end the Palestinian genocide.
The protests have led to charges of antisemitism by the Trump administration against colleges and foreign students who have participated. In retaliation, universities have had their research funding frozen, along with their tax exempt status and ability to host foreign students threatened.
Faculty at Rutgers University have organized a “mutual defense compact” within the “Big Ten” consortium, to provide legal and moral support to one another. Other universities are following suit by creating their own protective coalitions. At the heart of these coalitions is the need to protect academic freedom and institutional independence. (The Hill, The Guardian)
Harvard has become a lightening rod for these government attacks. Trump recently announced an additional cut of about $100 million in funding to Harvard, along with plans to cancel all contracts with the university. In all, Harvard could lose about $9 billion in federal contracts and funding. These grants and contracts constitute a joint investment to fund critical scientific and health research programs. While the government provides the money for materials relevant to the research, Harvard (and other universities) use their research facilities and faculty expertise, along with training students to become researchers. Cancelling this funding costs everyone the benefit of breakthroughs that save lives.
While all of the punitive actions of the government are concerning, the revocation of student visas and detainment of a number of foreign students and professionals has been particularly alarming. One student, Mahmoud Kalil, has been in the news for his arrest and removal to a prison in Louisiana for detention. Kalil was a master’s student at Columbia University and a spokesperson for the protesters there. His case is currently being tried in both New Jersey and Louisiana. In February, a Russian born, Harvard medical researcher was arrested for not declaring frog embryos while re-entering the country. Kseniia Petrova has had her visa revoked and is currently fighting deportation to Russia, from a detention facility in Louisiana. In May she was additionally charged with felony smuggling, although the embryos were for medical research at the university. Her lawyer contends this charge is meritless and is purely for the purpose of justifying her deportation. (The Guardian and Reuters)
Harvard has hosted international students under the F-1 Visa program for 70 consecutive years. Their current international enrollment is about 6800, with a third of their students coming from China, and more than 700 from India. “The experience of studying in the United States not only shapes the lives of individuals, but the future of our interconnected world,” said Scott Weinhold, with the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. “The ties formed between U.S. and international students today are the basis of relationships for future business and trade, science and innovation, and government relations.”
The F-1 Student Visa program is managed by the Department of Homeland Security. On May 22nd, DHS revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, saying the school has created an unsafe campus environment by allowing “anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators” to assault Jewish students on campus. While there has been some anti-Jewish sentiment on campus, along with harassment by pro-Palestinian students, the move by DHS could force as many as 6,800 foreign students — more than a quarter of its total enrollment — to transfer to another university or leave the country.
Harvard called the action unlawful and said it is working to provide guidance to students. President Alan Garber, noting that he is himself Jewish, said last month after filing a lawsuit to halt a federal funding freeze, that the school “will continue to fight hate with the urgency it demands as we fully comply with our obligations under the law. That is not only our legal responsibility. It is our moral imperative.” (NPR)
On April 16th, Harvard leadership received a demand from Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, that they hand over a trove of information on their international students or face revocation of their certification governing access to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS). This is a federally-run database that schools need to manage information about their international students. If Harvard did not comply, the administration indicated it would label the move a “voluntary withdrawal” from the federal database that the University could not appeal.
Harvard ultimately agreed to send the federal government limited information about international students. They submitted enrollment records for individuals on F-1 visas, as well as data detailing changes to their immigration status. However, lawyers for Harvard claimed they were not required by federal law to provide explanations for disciplinary actions.
Even after the submissions, Noem ultimately decided to revoke Harvard’s SEVIS certification, claiming the University failed to provide adequate information. Noah Feldman, a constitutional law professor at Harvard, said the government failed to “cite the regulations it claimed had been violated” following its May 7 request — a detail which may ultimately prove decisive to the University’s case. A judge quickly blocked the Trump administration’s effort on May 23rd and issued a temporary restraining order (TRO).
On May 25th, Trump posted on social media that he wants the names and countries of every international student enrolled at Harvard, in retaliation to the court’s TRO. Most recently, it was announced that all student visas are being temporarily suspended, not just at Harvard.
This desire to curtail the free flow of information, essential to education, is a function of every fascist playbook. “The concern for Jews is patently disingenuous, given Mr. Trump’s sympathy for Holocaust deniers and Hitler fans. The obvious motivation is to cripple civil society institutions that serve as loci of influence outside the executive branch. As JD Vance put it in the title of a 2021 speech: “The Universities Are the Enemy.” “(Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard)
Harvard has courageously chosen to take a stand for independence and integrity. They are fighting in court to protect international students’ information from government overreach, as well as challenging the cancellation of their research contracts. While Harvard is complying with demands for changes in political climate on campus, they are preserving their right to educational independence. Harvard is also using its resources to impact and educate the public. They offer free online classes, available to everyone, which focus on civics, the constitution and dynamics of American politics. Ultimately, they are defending the First Amendment of the Constitution on behalf of us all. We owe Harvard a debt of gratitude.