Joke or Genius? Why Davos Is Buzzing About Trump’s Memecoins?

It's about animal spirits. And what the US Is really good at is entertainment and animal spirits.

Now, because of the Meme Coin launch, I fear that the first question out of a lot of members is going to be, what does the President or his family get out of this?

Launching a Meme Coin two days before inauguration is sort of a showcase of what is to come for the next four years.

Davos is the home of the World Economic Forum. It's an incredibly difficult place to get into. Luckily, we've got our accreditation. Going to take you inside one of the exclusive events here in town to chat to some industry experts about Trump's presidency, Meme coins and what it means for the industry. I'm going to moderate this panel and I'm going to let you guys come with me.

When you think about crypto, the standard definition I used to use of crypto was Wall street meets the Valley and has a child, maybe a bastard child. But, you know, crypto is that. And I have to update it. Given everything we've seen most obviously in the last week, including this weekend, meme coins have a role to play. They're also very destructive to your sleep. So I had planned to go to sleep early to prepare for this week. It's going to be a busy week. Kind of destroyed my sleep yesterday just watching when the Melania Mean got announced. I'm trying to work out whether this is real. People telling me it's. It's a hack. Then they're like, no, it's real, it's real. Somebody tweeted at other people saying, no, it can't be, because the link, you know, the link she had didn't work for a while. It takes us back to the meaning of money. And sometimes, you know, I did a bit of economics and I spent almost 30 years in finance. We can get very serious about money and we can forget what money is about. Money is basically a made up thing. Money is something about community. And Meme coins take it to an extreme. Now, don't ask me to value them. Actually, my CFA subscription has now expired after many decades of paying for that cfa. But I don't know how you'd value a Meme Coin beyond trying to work out some kind of network effect. Right. And it's a bit of fun. Now, the question is, should the President, the First lady, be doing it? Now, I'm not American, I'm British. I live in Dubai now, like most of Britain does. I'm not, you know, he's not my president, so he, you know, I leave it to the Americans on the stage to determine whether their president should be launching meme coins a day or his first lady the day before inauguration.

I think, look, I think the bitcoin strategic reserve is going to be one of the places where you see this dual dynamic play out. I don't think there's going to be a lot of objection and a lot of concern to the US changing its policy from liquidating seized bitcoin or other kind of crypto assets rather than holding them in reserve. That's a decision that the executive can likely make on its own. Going to Congress to say the United States should be buying bitcoin was already something that I think there wasn't unanimity of opinion. Now because of the meme coin launch, I fear that the first question out of a number, out of a, out of a lot of members is going to be what does the president or his family get out of this? And that is not the question we want being asked when we, when we're talking about crypto related policies like whether there should be a bitcoin strategic bitcoin reserve. So I think you'll see again that duality. Again, I think you can see the executive actions going through, you can see a reserve being built, but you're going to start getting that question and it's going to be an example of how this and other activities are going to impact the policymaking process.

As someone who's been covering the industry for a long time and considering the sequence of events that have happened in the past six months and some of the promises that Trump has made in terms of supporting a bitcoin strategic reserve, if they, if they push this through Congress was very bullish for the cryptocurrency industry. And I can't help but feel that launching a meme coin two days before it became president took a lot away from the work that had been done to legitimize this industry. So that's very sad. And you know, the bitcoin bill and all of those policies are very much part of what Trump has promised to do and it's very optimistic for the industry.

Actually, if I can go back to my previous analogy and draw on that thread and draw in your gambling point, I got it wrong. I'm just going to self correct. Within two minutes of my last comments. I think I just said it was Hollywood meets Wall street meets the Valley. I forgot Vegas very much so. It's Vegas meets Hollywood meets Wall street meets the Valley. And that's the point. I want to pick up on double click on. Which is. I don't know. I have no insight on the US regulatory process. I leave it to my fellow panelists on that. Whether the American government should buy. I think as someone from TradFi, I think it's almost weird that all my crypto friends the last year had gone to this, please government, buy my bags. I mean, like, hello, this was set up, you know, to replace the dollar, to replace the Fed, and to replace my bank. Like, what are you guys doing? So I find that really, I still get cognitive dissonance over that. But where this is significant is that Vegas point. And you can get very sort of intellectual and snobby about it. But animal spirits drive capitalism. Whether it's Wall street or crypto, it's about animal spirits. And what the US Is really good at is entertainment and animal spirits. This is what we lack in someone who's spent most of their life living in. I still include Britain, in Europe. So someone who's spent most of their life living in Britain. In Europe, we lack that. We lack entertainment and animal spirits. And that's what. And you know, okay, he's not my president, but that's what he breaks. That's what this new regime brings. And I have no view on the Melania coin or the Trump coin, but there's a reason why we're going to get a lot more institutional interest. Bitcoin's up again. You know, having crashed initially yesterday, it's up again today because, you know, animal spirits are back and you can't quantify that. I can't put that into a DCF model, but it's super important. That's how the future gets built. And that's why in the last 15, 20 years, the US has outpaced the All Confident. And Meme coins are part of that. I'll take it.

Devroo. I'm very curious to hear what an economist has to say about it.

Everything disagree with it, but she's going.

To be more serious and intellectual.

Well, yeah, you know, I started this for 18 years, but I would say for me, launching a Meme Coin two days before inauguration is sort of a showcase of what is to come for the next four years, which is, I would call it rampant corruption. It's almost a shameless display of power in purpose of capitalism, perhaps. And the US economy is built on, I would say, strong policies and institutions, specifically following World War II. And what we've seen over the past 30 years is actually an erosion of that to the degree that we're, I think, I mentioned it last year too. We are Pre World War I levels of inequality. So US is by any standards not an example of a good capitalistic society. We're talking about free markets. Actually. I think that would be a better way to go about it than capitalism or crony capitalism for that matter. And if you look at sort of death rate and childcare, everything, just really everything, US ranks pretty much the lowest amongst all, quote unquote developed nations. So for what it is, I mean, labels are kind of less important to me. I find this sort of a, sort of a frenzy of like a dot com bubble type of scenario. And what it is going to do is a lot of more players are going to be in the space. We saw that happen like nine years in like when I was writing some of these early papers, 2016, like it was impossible to find another economist working on this so early. And now there's so many more people, they're writing token economic models and stuff like this. So that's good. That part is good. So adoption, yes, but I'm not quite sure about the quality of the new players that would come in. It will be a mixed bag at best, but it's driven by a convicted felon, so that's what it is. Right. And so be careful is what I'd say to everyone. If you're in it for sort of the technology or sort of the seriousness of it, which I think most of the folks here, you know, meet year after year are building companies and that's kind of their life's work, then you know, this is quite, quite dilutive, right, to the work that we're doing.

A lot of bitcoiners were finally sort of saying like, look, it's great that a nation like the US is going to hold bitcoin as part of a strategic assets and it's got hard money properties and you know, it's very similar to gold in a lot of the characteristics and it's more salable, you know, but at the same time all of this stuff has happened and it kind of just throws everything out the window. And, and if anyone was taking it seriously, are they going to take it seriously now?

If trust is missing, then I don't know what the point is.

You know, that is a, that is the problem, right, because everyone does look at the president and, and think that this person is, is doing what know, is actually running the country. We've got about two minutes left, you guys go ahead.

You guys just become like the rest of the world.

Listen, I, I'm, I mean, America's also.

Shining light on the Hill, but it's like, I mean this is just, you.

Know, so is it at all this correction a good thing? I mean that I, I lean towards thinking that there's be the crypto industry was the biggest lobbyer leading into this elections. You know, they spent more money than all the big tech companies lobbying different political parties both left and right. And they had a significant sway on what happened in the result of the election. If it means that that industry can now operate freely and build good tools and services, forget about the meme coins, look at all the protocols that are actually giving people value and trying to build financial services in different payment rails, that's good. And I like to think that that is the right direction. But what has happened is just hard to reconcile right now and I'm not sure. And then maybe you have some closing thoughts.

Yeah, I mean I think we're all waiting to see what's going to happen with the administration because the last administration was marked by kind of this again, a duality of agencies and people driving things to completion over the finish line, putting new things in place and then on the other hand chasing squirrels, going off on tangents and blurring the line between public and private. I think we all have to take a cautious look at this and I think that I'm hopeful that we're going to get many of the things that were promised, but I don't think it's going to be in a straight line. I think it's going to be very linear and I think the industry is going to have to do its work to course correct as we go to get the things that the industry is hoping to get from this administration.

I think I've met enough investigate. I met Chief Jim Lee who was the former head of the irs. And I know these are smart people and they're probably all looking at the Trump meme coin and they're looking at all the blockchain addresses and they're connecting all the dots and this could be the end of that story.

And the statute of limitations is longer.

Right.

Than the midterm elections in 2026 and the next presidential in 2028. So please be careful.

Sam.