Over the weekend, American economist Peter Schiff made a series of sarcastic posts in regards to memecoin TRUMP, launched by US president-elect Donald Trump on Friday, January 17. In his latest dig at the dynamics surrounding the token, Schiff said it could be used to bribe the incoming POTUS.
In a January 20 post on X, the financial commentator provocatively stated that, unlike the complex web of shell companies required to bribe the Biden family, all one needs to do to “bribe Trump” is buy TRUMP coins.
Schiff pointed out the trend of memecoin launches by the Trump family, which saw both the president-elect and his wife, Melania, release tokens on January 17 and 19, respectively. He reckoned that this could extend to other members of the Trump family, speculating that they might soon join the cryptocurrency market with their own coins.
Criticising the previous administration’s leader Joe Biden, the economist implied that the Trump family’s ventures in digital assets are more “all-on board,” a stark contrast to what he perceives as the more jumbled up financial dealings of the Bidens.
First, #Trump launched $TRUMP; now Melania has launched her own coin. I assume that soon the rest of the Trump family will be launching their coins. At least it’s all above board, which is an improvement over how the #Biden family cashed in.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) January 19, 2025
He also took a dig at Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s unofficial government expenditure office, the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E), saying that Trump is already living up to his promise to “make government more efficient.”
Peter Schiff: TRUMP is the new digital gold?
According to Schiff, the value of TRUMP fully relies on what happens to be the president-elect’s last name, which he believes is the only driver for its current market value.
However, he brought up an argument that Bitcoin is inferior to the memecoin, and it is the latter that deserves the name “digital gold.” Although his comments seem a little sarcastic, he drew some of the stats that TRUMP had achieved over the largest crypto, saying it took Bitcoin years to achieve a market cap of $72 billion, which the token took only two days to reach.
“TRUMP is worth 50% more than NEM, the world’s largest gold mining company. It’s up 40K% since Friday. It’s clearly a much better store of value than Bitcoin. TRUMP is the new digital gold,” Schiff posted on X.
In another post from late on Sunday, The Echelon Wealth Partners co-founder called for Biden to sell all federal BTC holdings as his final presidential act, echoing what his opinion from December 10.
This is the last night #Biden has to sell some of the #Bitcoin that @realDonaldTrump promised his #crypto supporters he would use to create a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. Let’s see if he takes advantage of the opportunity.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) January 19, 2025
Schiff has made it clear that he’s against Trump’s strategic Bitcoin reserve proposal, going as far as calling the asset a “threat to national security.”
DOGE is in a state of uncertainty ahead of Inauguration Day
Meanwhile, sources indicate that Ramaswamy plans to step down from his D.O.G.E. leadership role. Multiple reports, cited by CBS News, suggest that Ramaswamy intends to run for governor of Ohio, which would mark his departure from the group.
Some unconfirmed sources say there’s been internal friction within D.O.G.E in the last couple of weeks, stemming from the alleged dissatisfaction over Ramaswamy’s level of involvement in the group’s activities.
To compound problems for the unofficial government department, a public interest law firm, National Security Counselors, is supposedly preparing to file a lawsuit on January 20 claiming that D.O.G.E. violates federal transparency rules.
According to a Washington Times report, the lawsuit contends that the panel, which operates outside formal government structures, is in breach of the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972, which mandates government advisory bodies adhere to strict disclosure and hiring regulations.
D.O.G.E has already hired numerous staff members and operates out of SpaceX’s Washington offices, organizing secretive meetings with federal agencies. The group’s activities are often conducted via encrypted messaging on the decentralized app Signal, which the advocates say breeds a lack of transparency.
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