Trump Appoints PayPal Veteran David Sacks as ‘White House AI and Crypto Czar’

rom the vantage point of seven years across exchanges, media, and infrastructure in this space, you learn to recognize patterns. The technology evolves, the narratives shift, but the cycles of human greed remain remarkably consistent. We are currently in a cycle dominated by celebrity-endorsed memecoins, a frothy, dangerous casino that promises generational wealth but often delivers systemic exploitation. And if you’ve been on the losing end, you’ve likely contributed to the profits of operators who have mastered this new, predatory playbook. To understand this system, we need to look no further than the on-chain trail of Hayden Davis, also known as Kelsier of Kelsier Ventures. His alleged activities provide a perfect blueprint for how insiders weaponize hype, manipulate nascent markets, and drain liquidity, leaving retail investors as the final bagholders. This isn’t just about one person; it’s about a repeatable model that betrays the first principles of Web3. The Anatomy of the Hunt The playbook is both simple and devastatingly effective. It has three core phases: Infiltration and Pre-Positioning: The operator gains proximity to a major cultural figure — a politician, a musician, a celebrity. Before any public announcement, a network of insider wallets acquires a significant portion of the token supply at virtually zero cost. This is the critical, unseen setup. We saw this with the $MELANIA token, where Davis himself admitted to shaping the launch strategy, while on-chain data later revealed a cohort of wallets loading up moments before the public could. Manufacturing Legitimacy and Hype: The token is launched, wrapped in the borrowed credibility of the celebrity. In the case of the $LIBRA token, linked to Argentine President Javier Milei, Davis went as far as positioning himself as a “blockchain and AI advisor” to the president. This creates a powerful narrative that overrides traditional due diligence. Retail investors see a famous name and rush in, creating the parabolic price surge the insiders were waiting for. The Exit: As public buying reaches a fever pitch, the insiders execute their exit with brutal precision. They dump their pre-mined tokens into the market, crashing the price. In the most egregious cases, like the $LIBRA collapse where the market cap bled $4.6 billion in six hours, the team goes a step further by pulling tens of millions in USDC and SOL directly from the liquidity pool. The game is over. Insiders walk away with fortunes; the public is left with a worthless asset and a painful lesson. The Cycle Continues This is not a historical account. The cycle is accelerating. The latest analysis from on-chain forensics platform Bubblemaps suggests the same operator may have just run this playbook on the $YZY token, launched by Kanye West, to the tune of a $12 million profit in a single night. The names change, but the mechanics remain the same. A celebrity’s cultural capital is converted into market hype, which is then systematically drained by insiders who were positioned from the start. A Betrayal of First Principles What makes this cycle so corrosive is that it uses the very tools of Web3 — decentralized exchanges, permissionless token creation, and public ledgers — to perpetrate the oldest forms of financial manipulation. The promise of Web3 was to create fairer, more transparent systems. Instead, in the memecoin arena, transparency has merely given us a clearer view of the crime after it has occurred. As an industry, we must decide what we want to be. Will we continue to celebrate these short-term, extractive cycles, or will we build systems resilient to them? Until we prioritize sustainable value over manufactured hype, the playbook will be run again and again. The only question is who the next celebrity will be, and how many more retail investors will become their exit liquidity. Rinse, Rug, Repeat: Deconstructing the Modern Memecoin Playboo was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story

The Fed's independence is under threat, raising inflation concerns. Cryptocurrency markets react to Cook's dismissal and inflation fears. Continue Reading:Trump’s New Strategies Shake Up Global Crypto Markets The post Trump’s New Strategies Shake Up Global Crypto Markets appeared first on COINTURK NEWS.

Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) is putting pressure on Congress to pass clear crypto legislation on the heels of the Senate’s approval of the GENIUS Act on June 17. Cynthia Lummis Makes A Case For Crypto Giving remarks on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Lummis argued that while the successful Senate vote brought the U.S. “one step closer to being a welcoming home for digital assets,” Congress still needs to pass market structure legislation as a whole in order to make the U.S. the global “crypto capital.” Today brings us one step closer to becoming a welcoming home for digital asset companies. Now, let’s finish the job & pass market structure legislation to fulfill @POTUS ' vision of becoming the crypto capital of the world. pic.twitter.com/tyz6Kbc5qK — Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) June 18, 2025 “The success of the GENIUS Act hinges on comprehensive market structure legislation that protects consumers, establishes transparency, and creates clearly defined trading regulations,” Lummis said. “Congress must act quickly.” Lummis further claimed that working on crypto market structure policy has begun “in earnest,” with draft legislation and Senate hearings on the topic to come within the next few weeks. “This is only the first step,” Lummis said. “Congress must pass comprehensive market structure legislation in the coming months that draws a line between the security and commodity and creates a pathway for digital assets to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).” The GENIUS Act Heads To The House The GENIUS Act advanced past the Senate in a 68-30 vote on Tuesday despite partisan division over the stablecoin bill’s passage . Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) urged her fellow U.S. lawmakers to vote no on the legislation, citing concerns related to U.S. President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures. The Donald Trump-affiliated crypto platform World Liberty Financial recently announced the launch of its own stablecoin known as USD1, sparking backlash from his political opponents. “A bill that turbocharges the stablecoin market, while facilitating the President’s corruption and undermining national security, financial stability, and consumer protection is worse than no bill at all,” Warren said in a May press release . Despite the pushback, the GENIUS Act will now head to the House of Representatives.