Trump’s embrace of Bitcoin is the art of the grift

FINANCIAL bubbles are inherently political. John Law’s doomed pumping of Mississippi Company stock in 18th-century France came with the state’s blessing. Deregulation also helped fuel Japan’s 1980s market boom.

More recently, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the frizzy-haired mogul jailed for his role in cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s collapse, was accused by prosecutors of using over US$100 million in stolen money to fund his lobbying efforts.

When the good times roll, politicians rarely want to stand in the way. Which is why nobody should be surprised or relaxed about crypto’s political comeback after its last boom-and-bust cycle, with Donald Trump leading the charge.