As Robert Reich writes in hi Trump’s Crypto Inc. substack post, Trump and his family are reaping a fortune from his presidency—starting with cryptocurrencies.

Some of his significant points:

Let me remind you [he writes], in addition, that cryptocurrencies serve no useful purpose other than the purchase of other crypto assets, money laundering, extortion, and scams. As economist Paul Krugman has said, their market value rests on nothing but “technobabble and libertarian derp.”
They also use huge amounts of energy — especially for Bitcoin mining.
On the eve of Trump’s inauguration, he and his wife, Melania Trump, each launched a meme coin — a type of cryptocurrency based on an online joke or mascot. The Trumps’ meme coins soared in value and then crashed — generating enormous profits for the Trumps and other insiders, but a cumulative $2 billion in losses for more than 800,000 other investors. The Trump family and its business partners earned nearly $100 million in trading fees alone on the coins.
The Trump family is now negotiating a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance, according to people familiar with the matter. This would put Trump in business with the firm that pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering requirements.
These crypto ventures have created some of the most overt conflicts of interest in the history of the American presidency.
The biggest danger is that crypto infiltrates Wall Street, where it could cause a meltdown that would make the 2008 financial crisis look like child’s play.
Never in history has the family of a president gotten the bribes now being pocketed by Trump’s. Trump once dismissed Bitcoin as a “scam.” Now, he’s seeking to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet.”