The $Trump Coin Is Just $Tweed With Wifi

What if buying access to the President didn’t mean campaign donations or backroom deals, but just buying the right crypto?

Enter $Trump Coin, a meme-based cryptocurrency launched in spring 2024, marketed to supporters as both an investment and a loyalty badge.

It looks like satire, but it’s deadly serious: the more coins you buy, the higher you rank on the MAGA leaderboard. The top spenders get a chance to win prizes, including in-person events with Donald Trump, such as VIP dinners or photo ops.

That’s not speculation. That’s the actual sales pitch.

You can view it on the official Trump Coin website.

The coin is backed by a private company, CIC Digital, which licensed Trump’s name and image for an undisclosed amount. While the exact size of Trump’s personal payout hasn’t been confirmed, Reuters and other outlets report that CIC Digital and related entities collected over $86 million in trading fees within weeks of launch. Broader estimates suggest that total revenues from trading fees and related sales have since surpassed $320 million.

These are not campaign donations. They’re private revenues, funneled through corporate entities and not subject to donation limits, public transparency, or traditional finance regulations.

And, because buyers can remain anonymous, there are no clear restrictions on who is purchasing influence (or why).

That last part matters. There is no public list of who is buying the $Trump Coin. Foreign nationals, shell companies, wealthy lobbyists, or convicted felons could hypothetically participate anonymously, as the coin is not currently considered a political donation.

It’s being marketed as entertainment or merchandise, not as an investment in influence. But the reward system tied to purchases blurs the line completely. The more you spend, the closer you get to power.

It’s a pay-to-play scheme disguised as an investment, but data shows that, while 58 investors made millions on the coin, 764,000 investors have lost money.

Critics have accused Trump of orchestrating a pump-and-dump scheme, where insiders hype the coin, drive up prices with exclusive perks, then cash out as the market collapses around late buyers.

And just as watchdog groups began raising alarms, Trump allies in Congress introduced the GENIUS Act, which passed with the support of 16 Democrats and most Republicans.

This bill shifts oversight of cryptocurrencies from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to a new commission controlled by the Executive Branch. This means that Trump himself could soon be in charge of the market he is profiting from.

Let’s be clear… this isn’t just a weird stunt or a cringeworthy novelty token. It’s a direct pipeline between money and access, designed to bypass campaign finance laws, disguise political patronage as digital fandom, and turn influence into a speculative commodity.

When you can profit from public power and write the rules that protect your profits, that’s not governance. It’s a blueprint for legalizing grift and corruption at the highest level of government.

Tweed blurred the line between government and grift. His influence reached into every level of city government, from judges and contractors to clerks and city councilmen. All of them were part of a corrupt network that ran on bribes, loyalty, and fear.

Tweed didn’t just bend the rules. He rewrote them to enrich himself.

How He Lined His Pockets

Boss Tweed made his fortune by turning public office into a profit machine. He inflated city contracts, including the construction of the county courthouse, which soared from $250,000 to over $13 million. He then skimmed kickbacks from every padded invoice.

His network issued paychecks to ghost employees and forced real workers to hand over part of their salaries. He bought cheap land, steered public projects nearby, and flipped it for profit.

To keep control, Tammany Hall rigged elections through ballot stuffing, repeat voting, and intimidation, ensuring the money kept flowing and Tweed’s Ring stayed in power.

This slider shows the 12 biggest corruption scandals that Boss Tweed was involved in during his time in office.

The Nast-y End of Boss Tweed

Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist at Harper’s Weekly, became Tweed’s most dangerous enemy. Nast didn’t have subpoena power, but he had a sharp sense of humor, and he could draw. Nast’s cartoons were brutal, direct, and widely understood, even by an audience that might not read the newspaper’s editorial page.

Tweed once famously said:

“Stop them damn pictures! I don’t care so much what the papers write about me. My constituents can’t read. But, damn it, they can see pictures.”

Nast depicted Tweed as a bloated tyrant made of moneybags, often surrounded by vultures or seated on piles of stolen gold. These images traveled farther and hit harder than court transcripts or news columns.

Check out this collection of 33 high-res images of Thomas Nast’s original cartoons about Boss Tweed, from John Adler’s book, America’s Most Influential Journalist and Premier Political Cartoonist: The Life, Times and Legacy of Thomas Nast.

Nast’s work fueled public outrage, emboldened reformers, and helped flip public opinion so powerfully that, with the help of a scrupulous auditor, Matthew J. O’Rouke, Tweed was eventually arrested, tried, and imprisoned.