Maddow Slams Trump and Calls Bitcoin ‘Rip-off’

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

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

She attracts a putting comparability between crypto and Beanie Infants, saying, “Cryptos function on the identical concept. They don’t have any inherent worth in any respect, however individuals 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 mentioned, “The US won’t promote any Bitcoin deposited into the Reserve. Will probably be saved as a retailer of worth. The Reserve is sort of a digital Fort Knox for the cryptocurrency, usually referred to as ‘digital gold.’”

“It’s price taking a look at this crypto factor just a little bit,” Maddow mentioned 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 mentioned about Bitcoin and what she bought unsuitable.

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

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

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

“But it surely was price shopping for up a bunch of them as a result of there was hypothesis on the premise that as collectibles, perhaps at some point your Beanie Infants assortment might be price some huge cash.”

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

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

To get a practical 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 value has been going up ever because it launched on Jan. 3, 2009.

That’s 16 years of development in each day alternate fee for the greenback that dwarves comparable ROIs from the highest- flying tech shares within the inventory market’s total historical past.

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

However each time the skeptics have turned out unsuitable when the worth units new all-time excessive data inside 4 years. With regards to historic data, there is no such thing as 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, in accordance 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 don’t have any inherent worth in any respect. The one worth they’ve is that in case you have some cause to imagine that someone else may need to purchase them from you sooner or later.”

“What meaning in very sensible phrases is that convincing different people who your crypto is standard and in demand— that’s key to really making a living.”

But it surely’s not true that cryptocurrencies function on the identical concept as toy and style manias or that belongings like Bitcoin don’t have any inherent worth.

Beanie Infants should not a monetary product and don’t bear qualities that will make them appropriate to be used as one. It isn’t as straightforward as sending an e-mail to alternate a truckload of toy plushies, however it is extremely practically that straightforward to alternate Bitcoin.

It’s additionally unfeasible to maintain observe of what number of Beanie Infants are available in the market and publish up-to-the-minute each day buying and selling knowledge about each.

It isn’t solely possible with Bitcoin and different cryptos like those entering into the nationwide reserve— pc builders engineered them that method.

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 needs another person’s stuffed toy that they’ve been blowing their nostril on and rubbing Cheeto grease into?

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

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

The inventors of crypto belongings BTC, however, 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.

In actual fact, any unit of Bitcoin is at all times equal to another equal unit in market worth. That is referred to as fungibility, and it’s a system requirement for an asset to perform as a forex.

4. Beanie Infants Are Not Scarce Like Bitcoin

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

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

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

Nor does it imply there aren’t extra clever the reason 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 will not be solely not a rip-off— however the subsequent section of growing 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 along 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 mentioned. “We’re going to set up a federal authorities reserve of billions of Beanie Infants.”

“What do you suppose would occur to the worth of Beanie Infants? Turns on the market’s an enormous assured purchaser for this stuff. 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 unhealthy for a rip-off.