Maddow Slams Trump and Calls Bitcoin ‘Scam’

The Rhodes Scholar and liberal media commentator stated in a phase that aired Thursday, March 6, that cryptocurrency is a rip-off. She additionally slammed the White Home for “enjoying this recreation.”

MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow calls Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve a ‘deeply old style easy rip-off.’

She attracts a hanging comparability between crypto and Beanie Infants, saying, “Cryptos function on the identical concept. They haven’t any inherent worth in any respect, however folks speculate, hoping… pic.twitter.com/KnJrRWRnDd

— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) March 8, 2025

President Donald Trump signed an govt order earlier that day establishing a nationwide digital asset reserve.

White Home crypto czar David Sacks said, “The US won’t promote any Bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. It will likely be saved as a retailer of worth. The Reserve is sort of a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency, typically known as ‘digital gold.’”

“It’s value taking a look at this crypto factor slightly bit,” Maddow stated on her present. “Solely as a result of it’s a deeply, deeply old style easy rip-off. At this level, which factors proper to the White Home.”

Right here’s what Maddow stated about Bitcoin and what she received flawed.

1. Not like Beanies, Bitcoin’s Worth Goes Up

“Helpfully, the broad strokes of crypto buying and selling should not sophisticated,” Maddow stated. “It’s like when there was the Beanie Child craze within the late Nineteen Nineties.”

“It was a Beanie Child buying and selling bubble,” she defined. “Aside from some emotional worth should you had one as a baby, Beanie Infants didn’t have a lot inherent worth.”

“Nevertheless it was value shopping for up a bunch of them as a result of there was hypothesis on the premise that as collectibles, possibly at some point your Beanie Infants assortment may very well be value some huge cash.”

There may be, nevertheless, a key distinction between Bitcoin and Beanie Infants. Whereas Beanie Infants debuted in 1993 on the World Toy Truthful in New York Metropolis, this toy fad reached its top six years later in 1999.

Following the dot com crash in 2000, the public sale worth frenzy for Infants by no means recovered to these ranges once more.

To get a sensible concept of the aftermarket worth of stuffed toys, one want solely examine an area thrift retailer of their metropolis. However not like Beanie Infants, Bitcoin’s worth has been going up ever because it launched on Jan. 3, 2009.

That’s 16 years of development in day by day trade charge for the greenback that dwarves comparable ROIs from the highest- flying tech shares within the inventory market’s complete historical past.

Throughout its periodic bear markets, which have to date occurred on a reasonably predictable 4-year cycle, critics have repeatedly known as Bitcoin a fad and declared it lifeless.

However each time the skeptics have turned out flawed when the value units new all-time excessive information inside 4 years. In the case of historic information, there isn’t a smart comparability between Beanie Infants and Bitcoin.

Whereas the toy collectibles peaked in 1999 and by no means recovered, Bitcoin created 84,000 new crypto millionaires in 2024, according to a report on CNBC.

2. Beanie Infants Markets Are Not Liquid or Clear

“Cryptocurrencies function on the identical concept,” Maddow went on in her phase to say.

“They haven’t any inherent worth in any respect. The one worth they’ve is that when you have some purpose to imagine that any person else would possibly need to purchase them from you sooner or later.”

“What meaning in very sensible phrases is that convincing different those that your crypto is common and in demand— that’s key to truly making a living.”

Nevertheless it’s not true that cryptocurrencies function on the identical concept as toy and trend manias or that belongings like Bitcoin haven’t any inherent worth.

Beanie Infants should not a monetary product and don’t bear qualities that may make them appropriate to be used as one. It’s not as straightforward as sending an electronic mail to trade a truckload of toy plushies, however it is rather practically that straightforward to trade Bitcoin.

It’s additionally unfeasible to maintain observe of what number of Beanie Infants are out there and submit up-to-the-minute day by day buying and selling knowledge about each.

It’s not solely possible with Bitcoin and different cryptos like those going in the nationwide reserve— laptop builders engineered them that manner.

That’s a part of the worth they supply that makes it potential to make use of these digital commodities as monetary merchandise and funding autos: liquidity and transparency.

3. Beanie Infants Are Not Sturdy and Fungible Like Crypto

In the meantime, Beanie Infants should not sturdy and fungible like cryptocurrencies. Who desires another person’s stuffed toy that they’ve been blowing their nostril on and rubbing Cheeto grease into?

These inventories have market values which can be extremely delicate to put on and tear, and the merchandise are very weak to deteriorating right into a situation with a resale worth marked properly under retail.

Even when maintained in mint situation, after-market values for toy collectibles are extra like the marketplace for used vehicles. After being pushed off the lot, they instantly and sharply depreciate.

The inventors of crypto belongings BTC, then again, paid cautious consideration to designing their economics or “tokenomics” to optimize them for resale worth over time and for the foreseeable future.

Cryptocurrencies like the 2 talked about above have provide limits that introduce shortage economics. They’re additionally not topic to deteriorating bodily situation.

The truth is, any unit of Bitcoin is at all times equal to every other equal unit in market worth. That is known as fungibility, and it’s a system requirement for an asset to operate as a forex.

4. Beanie Infants Are Not Scarce Like Bitcoin

“The thought of hyping cryptocurrency is that individuals can purchase in quickly, proper?” Maddow continued on her present.

“Get in on the bottom flooring whereas it’s low-cost as a result of it’s about to go manner up in worth as a result of there’s a lot curiosity in it. If you happen to get in on the bottom flooring now, then you definitely’ll make a bundle. It’s the entire hype. It’s the entire rip-off.”

Whereas it’s true that contributors in crypto markets could interact in inauthentic, hyped-up advertising ways, that doesn’t make the underlying belongings a rip-off.

Nor does it imply there aren’t extra clever explanation why monetary geniuses like BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Shark Tank panelist Kevin O’Leary, or Technique’s Michael Saylor imagine investing in Bitcoin and the blockchain shouldn’t be solely not a rip-off— however the subsequent part of creating the Web and human civilization.

5. Bitcoin Instructions Actual Demand, Not Simply Hype

After making all these errors in her broadcast, Maddow lastly undid her personal case utterly together with her closing ideas on this phase.

“Think about Trump had simply introduced that the US authorities was going to purchase up tons of Beanie Infants,” the MSNBC host stated. “We’re going to set up a federal authorities reserve of billions of Beanie Infants.”

“What do you assume would occur to the worth of Beanie Infants? Turns on the market’s an enormous assured purchaser for these items. They’re shopping for billions of them.”

The reply to her query is: Their worth would in all probability go up like most analysts count on of Bitcoin. Since there’s an enormous assured purchaser and that purchaser is the US authorities.

Not dangerous for a rip-off.