OPINION: Anti-Biden crypto grifters scheme collapsing into a pile of lawsuits

OPINION: Anti-Biden crypto grifters scheme collapsing into a pile of lawsuits

A new crypto scam is seemingly targeting gullible followers of former president Donald Trump.

The MAGA crowd has always been susceptible to scams. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency, a portion of his supporters became obsessed with a speculative asset that they thought would make them wealthy— the Iraqi dinar.

The currency is pretty much worthless outside of Iraq, but, after Trump stated in a 2017 press conference that all currencies will soon “be on a level playing field,” his supporters went into a frenzy and bought millions of dinars. Trump was vaguely referring to trade imbalances with China but that didn’t matter to the MAGA investors, who went all-in on the dinar in hope of becoming millionaires when the currency went up in value to match the dollar. They are still waiting for their payday.

Crypto scams are also easy to find. A good example is Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’ favored Miami Coin, which is down over 95% from its all-time high and provided returns so awful on investment that, if you purchased $1,000 in September, you would now have less than $50 now.

Now, we have the worst of both worlds. A company is selling “Let’s go Brandon” or LGB cryptocurrency coins and luring unsuspecting “investors” by falsely claiming they have a NASCAR sponsorship deal and celebrity endorsements. Similar to the collapsing Miami Coin, this LGB meme coin skyrocketed in value before completely crashing and becoming worthless.

The LGB coin has all the markings of a “rug pull,” in which a crypto developer promotes a new project and then disappears with the money made as the currency collapses. The leaders of the LGB coin sold their coins before their value crashed and ran off with all the profits.

Now, a lawsuit has been filed in Orlando’s federal court by Eric De Ford, a Mississippi man who invested in this crypto scam and lost money.

The LGB coin was heavily promoted by idiotic Republican pundits like Candace Owens and even elected officials like Congressman Madison Cawthorn, who aside from trying to bank on a cheap political gain by promoting a coin named after a right-wing chant that serves as a euphemism for “Fuck Joe Biden,” should be investigated to see if he personally profited from this crypto scam.

The LGB coin eventually reached a market value of more than $570 million with a liquidity pool of $6.5 million but it crashed as a partnership with NASCAR went under. Despite the collapsing value, the company behind the LGB coin continued to promote it to unsuspecting “investors”.

The whole LGB crypto scam episode is a good metaphor for the MAGA movement, which is a political formation led by a disgraced reality tv star con artist who stands for nothing and is willing to say and do whatever it takes to make a buck, even if it’s at the detriment of his own supporters.

Thomas Kennedy is an elected Democratic National Committee member representing Florida. He tweets from@tomaskenn.

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Thomas Kennedy

is a reported opinion columnist and roving correspondent. He's an elected member of the Democratic National Committee from Florida and a Director of Sunshine Agenda Inc. a government transparency nonprofit organization.