Maddow Slams Trump and Calls Bitcoin ‘Scam’

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

MSNBC Host Rachel Maddow calls Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve a ‘deeply old school 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 individuals speculate, hoping… pic.twitter.com/KnJrRWRnDd

— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) March 8, 2025

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

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

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

Right here’s what Maddow mentioned about Bitcoin and what she acquired mistaken.

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

“Helpfully, the broad strokes of crypto buying and selling will not be difficult,” Maddow mentioned. “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 in case you had one as a toddler, 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, perhaps someday your Beanie Infants assortment might be value some huge cash.”

There’s, nevertheless, 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 top 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 research a neighborhood thrift retailer of their metropolis. However in contrast to Beanie Infants, Bitcoin’s value has been going up ever because it launched on Jan. 3, 2009.

That’s 16 years of development in day by day alternate 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 up to now occurred on a reasonably predictable 4-year cycle, critics have repeatedly referred to as Bitcoin a fad and declared it useless.

However each time the skeptics have turned out mistaken when the value units new all-time excessive data inside 4 years. In the case of 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, 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 section to say.

“They haven’t any inherent worth in any respect. The one worth they’ve is that you probably have some motive to consider that any individual else would possibly wish to purchase them from you sooner or later.”

“What which means in very sensible phrases is that convincing different those who your crypto is in style and in demand— that’s key to truly earning money.”

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

Beanie Infants will not be a monetary product and don’t bear qualities that may make them appropriate to be used as one. It’s not as simple as sending an electronic mail to alternate a truckload of toy plushies, however it is vitally practically that simple to alternate 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 attainable to make use of these digital commodities as monetary merchandise and funding automobiles: liquidity and transparency.

3. Beanie Infants Are Not Sturdy and Fungible Like Crypto

In the meantime, Beanie Infants will not be 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 might 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 cars. After being pushed off the lot, they instantly and sharply depreciate.

The inventors of crypto belongings BTC, alternatively, 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 truth, any unit of Bitcoin is all the time 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 foreign money.

4. Beanie Infants Are Not Scarce Like Bitcoin

“The thought of hyping cryptocurrency is that folks should 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. For those who get in on the bottom flooring now, you then’ll make a bundle. It’s the entire hype. It’s the entire rip-off.”

Whereas it’s true that individuals in crypto markets might have interaction 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 explanation why monetary geniuses like BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Shark Tank panelist Kevin O’Leary, or Technique’s Michael Saylor consider investing in Bitcoin and the blockchain just isn’t 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 together with her closing ideas on this section.

“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 most likely 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.