Issue 104 – World Tyranny Financial

As the Trump family’s crypto dealings raise more alarms, crypto enforcement is falling to new lows

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s old firm pumps $10 million into super PAC led by Tether executive

Cantor Fitzgerald, the Lutnick-tied financial services firm that owns a stake in and custodies reserves for the stablecoin issuer, is bankrolling a super PAC led by a Tether executive.

Issue 103 – The President’s Council of Podcasters

Coinbase is accused of holding the cryptocurrency industry hostage over stablecoin rewards, prediction markets face an onslaught of opposition, and a Stand With Crypto poll can’t even get enthusiasm from its own activists

Sam Bankman-Fried’s helicopter parents crash into federal court

SBF praises Trump from prison, his parents beg for a pardon on CNN, and his legal ethics professor mother files court documents claiming to be from him — prompting a judge to demand he swear under oath who wrote them.

Issue 102 – The public will pay

Justin Sun buys his way out of an SEC fraud case, Iranian transactions on Binance draw DOJ scrutiny as the exchange sues the newspaper that reported on them, and crypto super PACs dump millions into Tuesday’s primaries in Illinois.

Issue 101 – Bought and paid for

Bitcoin is down 50%, several prominent industry figures have been uncovered in the Epstein files, Trump’s facing a probe into his family’s $500M deal with the UAE, and crypto super PACs spend their first $6 million in the midterms.

Crypto super PACs have hundreds of millions ready to spend on the midterms

With Trump faltering and their policy agenda incomplete, the crypto industry has moved at least $288 million toward the midterms in a desperate bid to keep Republicans in control of Congress

Issue 100 – Freedom of all kinds is worth fighting for

As masked agents execute people and terrorize communities, crypto executives who spent years posting about freedom fall conspicuously silent — except when writing checks for the politicians enabling it

Issue 99 – They’ve bought themselves a Congress

Coinbase calls the shots in the Senate, former New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces rug pull allegations, and a crypto executive is breaking up with Trump

The year of technoligarchy

In 2025, Trump brought tech executives into power to dismantle regulators and write their own rules. But the instabilities they’re creating may be their downfall.

Issue 98 – The world’s most corrupt crypto startup operation

Terra’s Do Kwon gets 15 years, crypto banks get the green light, and the Trump family’s crypto grift expands even as one of their treasury companies goes off the rails

Digital asset treasury companies are running out of steam

Convincing traders to pay $2 for $1 of bitcoin worked — for a while. As premiums evaporate, an unwind could be painful.

Issue 97 – This is hardship

While slumping prices have some fearing it’s crypto winter again, Trump looks to Saudia Arabia and American retail crypto investors to fund the development of his next hotel

Issue 96 – Redefining solvency

Sam Bankman-Fried makes his case for a retrial and aspiring crypto banks hit roadblocks

Trump says he has “no idea” who he just pardoned

President Trump reacts to condemnations of his recent pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao by claiming he doesn’t know who he is.

Issue 95 – The pardon was the payoff

Binance’s Changpeng Zhao earns a gold-plated pardon as other industry figures fund Trump’s $300 million ballroom

Newsletter

Anatomy of a crypto meltdown

October 2025 brought the most dramatic crypto flash crash of all time, but it was only a dress rehearsal for the systemic crisis the industry is building toward.

Crypto recaps

Issue 94 – Backdoor deals

Trump is still corrupt, a core developer warns bitcoin won’t survive an upcoming code change, and crypto lenders are ratcheting up leverage like it’s 2022.

Newsletter

Issue 93 – Undermining deregulation

Democratic lawmakers sound corruption alarms while crypto PACs gear up for the midterms

Prediction markets are booming. Oversight is barely there.

Prediction markets once lived on the academic fringe. Now they’re trading billions on politics, sports, and celebrity gossip — under rules never designed for retail gamblers.

Crypto recaps

Issue 92 – The scam of all scams

The Trumps “debank” major customers from their “anti-debanking” cryptocurrency venture, and a CFTC nominee says the Winklevosses are blackballing him

Trump Jr.-advised prediction markets invite bets on president’s demise

President Trump’s deregulatory agenda emboldened prediction markets to push boundaries around permitted event contracts. Now sites advised by his son are allowing bets on his death.

Crypto recaps

Issue 91 – GDP on the blockchain

The regulator set to take on primary crypto oversight is down to a single Commissioner, and new pro-crypto PACs focus on installing more Republicans in the midterms

As he builds US power, Justin Sun fights to control his story

A crypto billionaire who once feared arrest in the US is now a Trump business adviser and White House guest. His lawsuit against Bloomberg reveals what he doesn't want Americans to know about his crypto fortune.

Crypto recaps

Issue 90 – Crime szn bro

The Trump administration cracks down on software to limit surveillance of crypto transactions, while celebrating a “deregulatory blitz” tailored for its billionaire benefactors

Better web

Curate your own newspaper with RSS

Escape newsletter inbox chaos and algorithmic surveillance by building your own enshittification-proof newspaper from the writers you already read

The Tornado Cash case: When politics sabotage a prosecution

The Trump administration’s regulatory whiplash has left prosecutors scrambling with misattributed chat messages and questionable victim testimony

Crypto recaps

Issue 89 – Crypto wins in Washington with midnight calls, chocolate bars, and a $141 million threat

Trump stands to profit from a $2 billion bitcoin bet as the crypto industry pushes through bills aimed at bolstering the sector

Crypto recaps

Issue 88 – The stockchain

Crypto firms hope putting a blockchain veneer on traditional equities will allow them to sidestep lessons learned in the 1929 Wall Street crash, crypto firms look to become banks, and Congress celebrates crypto surveillance while claiming to outlaw it

Crypto recaps

Issue 87 – SO ORDERED

Trump’s crypto empire attracts more foreign millions, the FHFA pushes crypto on mortgage lenders, and Mamdani’s mayoral primary win makes billionaires sweat

Crypto recaps

Issue 86 – State power sponsored by Coinbase

The GENIUS Act passes the Senate after explicit threats to Democrats from the crypto lobby, and shady crypto billionaire Justin Sun cozies up even closer to the Trump family

It matters. I care.

Giving up on the idea that truth matters is not just cynicism, it’s surrender.