ilmscore | Prediction Details
"Now, to be fair, Saxs isn't hiding any of this. He's been completely transparent about his holdings and his vision. He's betting that nobody cares because everyone's too busy getting rich to complain. And he's probably right. On that note, meanwhile, if you're looking to maximize your crypto gains, then check out the Coin Bureau deals page. That's where you'll find signup bonuses of up to $100,000, trading fee discounts of up to 50% and cash back on deposits of up to 75% on crypto exchanges. These deals won't be around for long, so take advantage of them ASAP using the link down below or the QR code on the screen. Moving on, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik has an even more brazen story. His firm Caner Fitzgerald is the primary custodian for Tether's $165 billion in reserves. Caner earns tens of millions annually just from managing these massive reserves. And within the past year, Caner has negotiated a 5% ownership stake in Tether valued at up to $600 million. They're also launching a $2 billion Bitcoin lending program, reportedly with Tether's backing. When Tether made a $150 million investment into Bitcoin miner Bit deer, Caner Fitzgerald acted as the placing agent. Now the obvious play here is USDT itself. With Lutnik in the White House, it could be protecting Tether from regulatory scrutiny, evidenced by the fact that USDT's dominance in stable coin markets is looking more robust than ever. But the second order effects matter more. Lutnik's political cover benefits Tether's investments like Bit Deer, the mining infrastructure developer Northern Data, in which Tether has a controlling stake, and Rumble, the video platform trying to challenge YouTube, which Tether has financed to the tune of $775 million. It can't hurt these companies that the commerce secretary is Howard Lutnik, can it? Now upon confirmation, Lutnik pledged to divest his business interests, handing control to his sons. His son Brandon, who interned at Tether's office in Switzerland, is now chairman of Caner. Convenient succession planning. Lutnik can claim he's divested while his family fortune remains tied directly to Tether's success. The commerce secretary is essentially Tether's man in Washington, positioned to champion stable coin favorable policies while potentially shielding his primary business partner from regulatory threats. Next up, we have Todd Blanch, who presents the wildest conflict of interest so far. Trump's former personal defense attorney is now deputy attorney general, the second most powerful position at the Department of Justice. This is the guy who stood beside Trump when he was convicted on 34 felony counts last year in his hush money trial. Blanch filed every appeal and now he's co-directing federal law enforcement priorities. One month after confirmation, Blanch issued a four-page memo entitled Ending Regulation by Prosecution. The memo fundamentally realigned the DOJ's approach to crypto. It declared that the DOJ 'is not a digital assets regulator' and ordered the immediate dissolution of the national cryptocurrency enforcement team. The memo also directed the market integrity and major frauds unit to cease crypto enforcement and prosecutors not to charge things like unlicensed money transmitting or unregistered securities offerings unless there's clear evidence of willful intent, which is a remarkably high bar. So now the criminal enforcement apparatus that pursued crypto crimes for years is gone. The specialized teams that understood blockchain forensics and DeFi exploits are disbanded. The memo states that the DOJ will pursue criminals but 'will not pursue actions against the platforms that these enterprises utilize, which is basically handing a blank check to DeFi. Blanch's financial disclosures, meanwhile, reveal hundreds of thousands of dollars held in BTC and ETH, but also smaller positions, including Ethereum Classics ETC, Polygon's MATIC, now Pole, Polka Dot's DOT, Cardano's ADA, Quant, and the Brave Browser's Basic Attention Token or BAT. But the real insight is less about Blanch's personal holdings and more about what his memo means for America's crypto industry. By raising the bar for criminal prosecution to willfulness, he's decriminalized huge portions of crypto activity. Centralized DeFi protocols operating without licenses are protected. Unregistered token sales are safe unless prosecutors can prove deliberate knowing violations. Also consider the broader context. Trump's former personal lawyer is now running DOJ policy that directly benefits Trump's crypto ventures like World Liberty Financial, which raised $300 million selling a governance token with questionable utility. Under previous DOJ enforcement, that's a securities fraud enforcement action waiting to happen. But under Blanch's new willfulness standard, prosecutors would need to prove founders knew they were violating specific rules and intentionally did so. An almost impossible bar to clear. Okay, next up, Paul Atkins, the new SEC chairman. After leaving his first role at the SEC in 2008, Atkins founded PTOAC Global Partners, a financial services consulting firm whose client list includes several major crypto exchanges and DeFi protocols, relationships that now benefit from his regulatory decisions. As SEC chairman, Atkins recently launched Project Crypto, declaring that 'Most crypto assets are not securities.' six words that undid years of regulatory ambiguity and unlocked the administration's entire crypto agenda. Now, the stated goal of Project Crypto is to modernize securities rules to help America's financial markets to move on chain, thereby cementing the US as the global leader in digital finance. In practice, it creates safe harbors for ICOs, airdrops, and network rewards, protects DeFi developers from liability, and enables so-called super apps offering trading, staking, and lending under single licenses. And if you want to find out what all of that means, then you can check out our full report on Project Crypto linked to in the description. Now, under Atkins, SEC crypto enforcement actions have fallen off a cliff. The commission disbanded its crypto assets and cyber unit and Wells notices from the Gendler era have been withdrawn for projects agreeing to lighter registration requirements. As for which projects benefit, well, Coinbase is an obvious winner because they can offer every service imaginable without complex state licenses. But the protocols themselves matter more. Ave and Compound can serve US users directly without fear. Make a DAO can expand D without stable coin enforcement concerns. Every DeFi blue chip benefits from this framework. Project Crypto also proposes the creation of a regulatory sandbox that allows firms to bring novel business models to market without full compliance with existing regulations, which sounds like a get out of jail free card for DeFi devs. Bullish. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary and former hedge fund manager Scott Besson's 2024 disclosure showed Bitcoin exposure in the hundreds of thousands through various instruments including futures, options, and fund investments. He also held positions in Bitcoin mining companies and crypto adjacent fintech stocks. As Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant is championing the Genius Act for stable coins while dismantling barriers between crypto and traditional banking. For example, by issuing guidance ending reputational risk as a factor in bank examinations, the very tool used to keep banks away from crypto. When banks can freely service crypto companies and stable coins receive blessing as dollar instruments, trillions in potential inflows are unlocked. And Bessant's background matters here. He made his fortune at Soros Fund Management, working for the man who broke the Bank of England by shorting the British pound in 1992. He understands speculative currency attacks better than anyone. So when Bessant looks at stable coins, he doesn't see a threat to dollar dominance. He sees an opportunity to extend it. Think about it. Every USDT and USDC in circulation requires actual dollars in reserve. That's $165 billion in USDT alone. All creating demand for US dollars and US Treasury bills. It's dollar hegemony on crypto rails and Bessant knows the game perfectly. The stable coin plays become obvious once you see them through this lens. USDT dominates through Lutnik's protection at commerce. USDC benefits from regulatory clarity at the SEC. And now with federal frameworks in place, mega banks like JP Morgan and Bank of America are rushing to launch their own dollar stable coins. Each one extends dollar hegemony further into the digital economy. And finally, we have Vice President JD Vance, who also holds hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin, according to the August 2024 financial disclosure filed during his VP candidacy. BTC has since doubled in value, meaning that the VEP could be sitting on seven figures worth of sats. Now he frames crypto as a 'hedge against bad policymaking from Washington' while his boss makes the policies in Washington. But the deeper story runs through his venture capital ties. Vance co-founded Nia Capital with Peter Teal, the PayPal billionaire who introduced Vance to Trump in 2021. They also co-founded the Rockbridge network together, a donor network designed to influence tech policy on the right. This isn't just a business partnership. its political architecture. Now, Vance retains million-dollar stakes in funds managed by NA Capital and Revolution Partners. According to watchdog group Accountable us, Revolution holds an investment in the Bitcoin company, a startup operating a Bitcoin investing and rewards app. This creates a direct link between Vance's venture fund stakes and the crypto market he promotes from the White House. Meanwhile, Teal's Founders Fund has massive crypto positions, having bought $200 million worth of BTC and ETH back in 2023. It also has a 9.1% stake in Bitcoin miner Bitmine Immersion Technologies and backing for crypto startups like the bullish exchange and Igloo Inc. Okay, so now let's look at how these appointments interconnect. When a DeFi protocol launches today, it enters a world overseen by officials with direct stakes in its success. Atkins declaring that most cryptos aren't securities removes the existential threat that hung over every project. Blanch's DOJ memo requiring willful violations essentially decriminalizes most regulatory breaches. Bessant removing reputational risk from bank examinations opens the TRDFI floodgates. Now, the market understands this perfectly, which is why we're seeing such dramatic moves. Defi TVL has ripped past $153 billion, up 53% year to date, with lending making up $57 billion. These aren't random pumps. They're the market pricing in regulatory certainty for the first time ever. And it's not just cryptonative money moving. Venture capital deployment into crypto hit $4.8 8 billion in Q1 2025, the highest level since 2022. And Tradfi integration is only accelerating. Black Rockck's tokenized money market fund on Ethereum, Bidd is approaching a $3 billion market cap. Franklin Templeton is shilling its onchain mutual funds. JP Morgan continues expanding blockchain payment infrastructure. Each integration locks in another piece of the new financial architecture the Trump administration is building. Trump has assembled a cabinet where personal financial interests align uncannily with policy responsibilities. Financial disclosures give us a glimpse behind the curtain. From Sax's venture portfolio to Vance's direct Bitcoin positions to Lutnik's indirect Tether Stake. What we're watching is coordinated policy changes benefiting specific sectors. Stable coins get federal frameworks while their biggest custodian runs commerce. DeFi gets safe harbors while venture investors write the regulations. Bitcoin gets strategic reserve status while holders occupy the Treasury and the vice presidency. Now, of course, this cozy arrangement comes with an expiry date. The 2026 midterms could shift congressional dynamics and regulatory reversal is always possible under a different administration. And history shows these windows of regulatory capture never stay open forever, believe it or not. But the dot era saw similar regulatory capture before the crash. The 2008 financial crisis also followed years of banks writing their own rules. The playbook is always the same. Loosening leads to accumulation. Accumulation leads to excess. And excess leads to the inevitable tears and tightening. But that's a future problem. Right now, the administration's 4-year term provides something crypto has never had. Certainty. Projects launching today have guaranteed runway until 2029. That's why infrastructure investments, institutional products, and regulatory frameworks are all being built on this timeline. Everyone knows the window, so everyone's rushing to get through it. And when the people writing the rules have millions riding on the outcome, the house always wins. So the least we can do is understand the game. Watch their portfolios, monitor their policies, track the capital flows. Your portfolio might thank you, or you might lose everything, but at least you'll know whose yacht you helped to pay for. Anyway, if you enjoyed learning about Washington's bag pumpers and chief, then check out this video to find out how the SEC's Project Crypto could pump yours, too. Now, there's a sentence I never thought I would say. Okay, that's all from me for now. As always, thank you for watching and I'll see you next time. This is Guy. Over and out."
By Coin Bureau | August 27, 2025 | Pending
From video
Trump’s Crypto Empire: What The Insiders Hold 00:04:42 - 00:04:48
Interpreted Prediction
The Office of Government Ethics lost its director shortly before ethics waivers were issued to David Sachs.

Prediction Details

Topic
Office of Government Ethics Director Vacancy

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