Trump and Dump

I figured I'd follow up yesterday's post about yet another right-wing scam, one more insidious than yesterday's Freedom Fone Foolishness.  I'm skeptical about cryptocurrencies, those digital moneyesque products backed by the full faith and credit of a bunch of sketchy libertarian techbros.  I'm also skeptical about anything MAGA, especially that grift-based ecosystem based on affinity scams and grievances.  

Talking about affinity scams and grievances, I present you you MagaCoin, a cryptocurrency created by a right-wing operative which, well, you have to see it to believe it:

MAGACOIN was created by America First Conservatives out of frustration with “Losing the Election” and a desire to fight back by supporting MAGA candidates in 2022 and beyond.

Approxiamtely 75 million MAGACOINS were created to represent the 75 million voters who were disenfranchised on November 3rd, 2020.

Unlike most new coin releases, MAGACOIN will not hold an ICO (Initial Coin Offering), instead we will be giving away 100 coins to each new registrant in order to build a robust MAGACOIN ecosystem that will work together to gain access to the crypto exchanges and support the MAGA movement.

 Affinity scam?  CHECK!  Grievance?  CHECK!

My favorite thing about this is the giveaway, that 100 MAGACOIN gift that sinks the hook... as the cliche goes, the first hit is free.  By giving away 100 MAGACOINs to interested rubes, the creator has given them a reason to buy in more, and the sunk cost fallacy will probably keep them in.  In an echo of the use of right-wing pundits to push Freedom Fones, there is an offer of 1,000 MAGACOINs to any right-wing media figures who plug the thing.  Doubtless, the creator will be holding millions of units, so every buy in will increase the value of his holdings- your 100 MAGACOINs might be worth a dime, but his millions will be worth so much more.  To me, this screams pump and dump, or in this case, Trump and dump.  It's a case of another shitcoin, an alt-cryptocurrency of dubious value, which can fluctuate wildly when a cult figure mentions it.

To add to my suspicion that this is a scam, I found a Reddit post which included a rocket emoji, which signifies the rally cry of 'to the moon', invoked by outsider investors who are attempting to inflate the value of an asset.  This combination of get-rich-quick scam and affinity fraud is raising my hackles.  Some people might get rich, but I think any rank-and-file MAGA mooks are going to get fleeced.