Molly White's Citation Needed - Issue 87 – SO ORDERED

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Trump’s crypto empire attracts more foreign millions, the FHFA pushes crypto on mortgage lenders, and Mamdani’s mayoral primary win makes billionaires sweat. Originally published on July 1, 2025.

I'm Molly White, and you're listening to the audio feed for the citation-needed newsletter. You can see the text version of the newsletter online at citation-needed.news. Issue 87. So ordered. Trump's crypto empire attracts more foreign millions. The FHFA pushes crypto on mortgage lenders, and Mondani's mayoral primary win makes billionaires sweat. This issue was originally published on July 1, 2025. It feels like every week I write something along the lines of Trump's crypto conflicts surge to new heights, but Trump's crypto conflicts have, again, surge to new heights,

as the Emirati Investment Fund, Aqua One, pours $100 million into his World Liberty Financial crypto project, leaving former corruption frontrunner Justin's son in the dust. Elsewhere, FHFA director Bill Pulte tries regulating by tweet, directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider crypto as mortgage reserve assets, because nothing says economic stability like tying your ability to afford a home to an asset known for its dramatic boom and bust cycles. And crypto packs are throwing cash into a Virginia special election to try to install a crypto booster in the seat that previously belonged to crypto-skeptic Jerry Connolly, while New York's mayoral primary sent crypto and other billionaires into full. panic mode. Welcome to the circus. In the White House, Trump Business Interests.

Aqua One Foundation, a United Arab Emirates-based crypto fund, has spent $100 million to acquire WLFI tokens, that is, tokens issued by the Trump Family's World Liberty Financial Project, and to cultivate a close relationship with the Trumps. They have just surpassed shady crypto billionaire Justin Sun and his $75 million investment to become the single largest holder of WLFI tokens. World Liberty also profited massively last month from a deal in which Emeradi investment firm MGX used the company's USD1 stablecoin to perform a $2 billion investment into Binance. In a press release, Aqua One claimed that they in World Liberty would work closely to, jointly identify and nurture high potential blockchain projects and said that World Liberty,

quote, plans to support the launch of Aqua One's Aqua Fund, a UAE domiciled investment fund dedicated to accelerating the Middle East digital economy transformation. For all Trump likes to talk about America-first crypto projects, his businesses are looking very UAE first. World Liberty also just announced a partnership with London-based Re7 Capital. a decentralized hedge fund backed by the Hong Kong multifamily office VMS group. The partnership aims to increase USD1 uptake on B&B chain, the blockchain run by Binance. Connections between Binance and Trump have already been controversial, with Democratic senators Warren, Durbin, and Blumenthal writing a May letter requesting

information on Trump's connections to Binance and its former executives and opining that, quote, the convergence of former Binance CEO Mr. Zhao's pardon application and Binance's financial entanglements with the president's family presents urgent concerns regarding the integrity of our justice system. There have been rumblings that Trump has sold some of his stake in World Liberty, as Democrats in Congress have tried to hold up crypto legislation over his substantial conflicts of interest. Most of this stems from an update to the fine print on World Liberty's website, which now says that the Trump family owned DT-Marx-Defi LLC owns a 40% stake in World Liberty, down from the 60% it displayed previously.

However, information on the World Liberty Financial site has regularly been wrong, and neither number matches the 75% ownership, Trump declared in his most recent financial disclosures that were only just published on June 13th. A journalist asked Trump if he was, quote, open to the idea of pulling away from his personal crypto ventures just for the next few years if that helps get these crypto bills passed, to which Trump just repeated, I'm president in case we were unaware. Technically, his incoherent ramble was a bit longer than that, but it didn't contain much more information.

Well, it's a very funny thing, crypto. So I became a fan of crypto, and to me it's an industry. I view it as an industry, and I'm president. And if we didn't have it, China would or somebody else would, but most likely China, China would love to. And we've dominated that industry. It's a big industry, by the way. In fact, when the stock market went down recently, crypto and Bitcoin and all of that went down much less than anybody else as a group. And we've created a very powerful industry, and that's much more important than anything that we invest in. We invest in it, but really that was an industry that wasn't doing particularly well.

I got involved with it a couple of years ago. and before this whole, before the second term, I got involved before I decided to run. I only decided to run because I saw what was happening and Biden was incompetent and the administration was crooked and incompetent. And I was in Bitcoin then, not knowing if I was going to do it a third time. So it's become amazing. I mean, it's the jobs that are producers. And I notice more and more you're paying Bitcoin. I mean, people are saying it takes a lot of pressure off the dollar. and it's a great thing for our country. So I don't care about investing.

You know, I have my kids and they invest in different things. They do believe in it. But I'm president. And what I did do there is build an industry that's very important. And, you know, if we didn't have a China would. Well, that clears things right up. In government, 10 days after the lever published leaked messages between Democratic operatives and members of the crypto industry,

suggesting that pro-crypto-democrats could get air cover for supporting Trump-supported crypto bills by introducing, quote, symbolic anti-corruption amendments to the final bill prohibiting President Trump and elected officials from profiting from cryptocurrencies, knowing the effort would be DOA or dead on arrival, Adam Schiff has triumphantly announced his curbing officials' income and non-disclosure act, or coin act, to, quote, put a stop to Trump's corruption in his, plain sight. He announced the bill, which will not pass, less than a week after voting in support of the Genius Act. Schiff benefited substantially from the crypto industry's $10 million

opposition to his fellow Democratic opponent in the primary, Katie Porter, and he received direct support from various executives at companies, including Ripple, Coinbase, and Indreason Horowitz. Crypto Mortgages On June 25th, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, published a memo directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to, quote, prepare a proposal for consideration of cryptocurrency as an asset for reserves in their respective single-family mortgage loan risk assessments. The memo, Pulte said, came after he did some, quote, significant studying and was aimed

at satisfying Trump's, quote, vision to make the United States the crypto capital of the world. Despite the official letterhead and Pulte ending his tweet with the Trumpian pseudo-judicial all-cap sign-off of So-ordered, as of five days after the post, Pulte's directive does not actually appear on the FHFA's list of official orders and may have been solely issued via Twitter. As the directive currently only orders the two companies to prepare a proposal, details on what this would ultimately look like are somewhat scarce. However, Pulte noted that any proposal should not require the crypto assets to first be converted to dollars, and that only assets, quote,

that can be evidenced and stored on a US regulated centralized exchange subject to all applicable laws should be considered. The latter is a somewhat controversial caveat for the not your keys, not your coins, segment of the crypto populace, who views storing crypto on a centralized exchange as an unacceptable dereliction of control to the types of intermediaries crypto was supposed to make obsolete. Though any move in this direction is still in its early stages, the tweet is another attempt, by the Trump administration to integrate crypto into one of the most central parts of the American economy, and one where instability has particular potential to inflict massive consequences on everyday people. Many interpret Satoshi Nakamoto's invention of Bitcoin as a direct response

to the 2008 financial crisis, and his inscription of the headline, quote, The Times 3 January 2009, Chancellor on the brink of second bailout for banks into the Bitcoin blockchain's Genesis block as a signal of his anger at government intervention and the failures of big banks. Now Bitcoin and other crypto assets are increasingly threatening to themselves introduce new instability. Some other companies have also gone beyond just considering crypto holdings as reserve assets when determining mortgage suitability, as is indicated by this memo, with Coinbase recommending people use their crypto borrowing program to borrow money to pay their mortgages, and other crypto companies such as Milo offering high-interest mortgages with crypto collateral.

Milo has also expressed interest in securitizing their crypto loans in the future, because when have securities backed by high-risk mortgages ever gone wrong in the past? House Republicans are working to push forward crypto legislation, possibly by advancing both the Senate's Genius Act and the Clarity Act. Act Market Structure Bill in a combined vote. The Genius Act has already passed the Senate, and Trump has urged the House to push it through, quote, lightning fast. Texas is the third state to enact legislation authorizing the creation of a state Bitcoin Reserve following New Hampshire and Arizona. Inregulators. The Supreme Court has denied a request to take up a case

challenging the IRS's demands for information from companies such as Coinbase. The plaintiff, James Harper first argued in 2020 that his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated when the IRS, quote, obtained a vast quantity of Coinbase records by means of a Dragnet subpoena devoid of individualized suspicion. The district court dismissed his claims and the First Circuit upheld the ruling on appeal. Harper's Supreme Court petition earned support from Coinbase, Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, the Defy Education Fund Advocacy Group, the states of West Virginia, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Ohio, and several others, but was ultimately denied. SEC.

Federal Judge Annalisa Torres rejected the joint request by Ripple and the SEC to lift the August 24 permanent injunction ordering Ripple to obey securities laws and reduce the $125 million dollar penalty to only 50 million. This outcome is no huge surprise given Torres's previous skepticism towards a malformed request to do the same thing. But Torres elaborated, quote, not that long ago, the SEC made a compelling case that the public interest weighed heavily in favor of a permanent injunction and a substantial civil penalty. First, a penalty was necessary because Ripple had violated the law. Second, the SEC pressed for a permanent injunction because Ripple's misconduct was reckless and likely to continue. None of this has changed, and the parties

hardly pretend that it has. Nevertheless, they now claim that it is in the public interest to cut the civil penalty by 60% and vacate the permanent injunction entered less than a year ago. Taurus essentially left Ripple with two options, except the earlier penalties and walk away, or continue fighting to have the judgment overturned on appeal. Ripple chose the former at the following day, dropping its cross-appeal against the SEC. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also wrote that they still expected the SEC to drop their appeal as well, which was filed before Trump took office and which sought penalties closer to the nearly $2 billion originally requested by the agency.

In elections and political influence. Crypto super PACs have just spent $1 million to back Democrat James Walkinshaw in the Virginia special election to replace representative. of Jerry Connolly, the former ranking member of the House Oversight Committee who died in May. Walkenshaw, a longtime chief of staff for Connolly, won the so-called Firehouse Primary with about 60% of the vote. Connolly had been a staunch opponent of crypto, recently opposing Trump's efforts to establish its strategic crypto reserve, and blasting Trump's meme coin as, quote, open corruption. Walkinshaw, on the other hand, writes on his website that, quote,

we must embrace the next generation of technology, including blockchain. Zulharan Mimdani's win in the New York mayoral primary is already making crypto billionaires sweat, and it's making me wonder if the crypto lobby will pile some of their cash into the city's general election later this year. Trump, Crypto, and A.I. Tsar, David Sacks reposted a clip of Mammie expressing his opinion that, quote, I don't think we should have billionaires, tweeting, quote, wake up Silicon Valley, this is the future of the Democrat Party. Communism has defeated liberalism. Even Bill Clinton has bent the knee.

You basically have two choices now. Get on board with MAGA or prepare to be on Mamdani's dinner menu. While Mamdani has not expressed an opinion on crypto, his upcoming opponents sure have. Incumbent mayor Eric Adams, elected as a Democrat but running for re-election as an independent, recently appeared at the Bitcoin Conference to reinforce his self-enointed title of Bitcoin mayor, and suggests that New York City issue Bitcoin-backed municipal bonds, an idea that was quickly swatted down by New York City comptroller Brad Lander, who is also a candidate in the

Democratic primary, coming in third place after cross-endorsing Mamdani. Mamdani's closest opponent in the primary, who will now also be running as an independent candidate in the general election, former New York governor and alleged sex pest Andrew Cuomo advised crypto exchange OKX after resigning his governor in 2021, when the company faced criminal charges that would ultimately land them more than $500 million in penalties. And the Republican contender, perennial candidate Curtis Sliwa, tweeted during his 2021 campaign that he would, quote, make NYC the most cryptocurrency-friendly city in the nation, by allowing property taxes to be paid in crypto, installing more crypto-atems, and encouraging

businesses to accept crypto. That said, he also later criticized Adams for spending too much time with, quote, crypto profiteers, cryptocurrency pirates, and crypto monsters. Tyler Winklevoss, one of the twin billionaires behind the Gemini crypto exchange, who contributed millions of dollars to political campaigns in 2024, seems to be at least considering bankrolling an opponent, writing that he is, quote, torn and undecided on the idea, before launching into a long-scroup, dismissing the young New Yorkers who turned out in record numbers this election as spoiled and ignorant private school kids living in apartments paid for by their Wall Street parents. In the courts, John Waltz and William DePlessy, charged with kidnapping an Italian cryptocurrency

millionaire and torturing him for weeks in a New York City apartment, have pleaded not guilty. They're currently being held without bail and are previewing their defense somewhat as they argue that the Italian man wasn't kidnapped at all. According to the defense, he was in fact, quote, having the time of his life as he partied with his alleged captors, freely coming and going from the townhouse. Prosecutors have claimed that the alleged captors set up the photos, suggesting the victim wasn't being held against his will. A Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in a $40 million crypto Ponzi scheme involving scam companies called Empowercoin, Ecoin plus, and jet coin.

Prosecutors in Massachusetts and Georgia have been trying to tackle North Korea's tactic of having malicious contractors apply for jobs with cryptocurrency firms and then use their access to steal funds. In simultaneous announcements, Massachusetts declared they had charged nine individuals and Georgia charged four. Spanish police have arrested five people on charges connected to their alleged laundering of $540 million in stolen cryptocurrency obtained from investment frauds targeting more than 5,000 victims. The arrests were the result of an international operation supported by Europol. Elsewhere in crypto. Polymarket. Crypto betting platform Polymarket is facing renewed allegations of outcome manipulation, again involving Ukraine. When the outcomes of a bet on

the polymarket platform are challenged, the dispute is resolved. through a platform called the UMA protocol, where holders of the UMA token are expected to act as, quote, impartial arbiters of the outcomes of relevant markets. However, in the past, large holders of the UMA token have swung the outcome of votes, such as in March when one UMA whale manipulated the outcome of a betting market over whether Ukraine would agree to Trump's mineral deal. At the time, Pollymarket stated, quote, this market resolved against the expectations of our users and our clarification. This is an unprecedented situation, and we have been in war rooms all day internally and with the UMA team to make sure this won't happen again.

This is not a part of the future we want to build. Despite those promises, it sure seems to be happening again, this time in a $14 million betting market over, yes, really, whether Ukrainian President Zelensky would wear a suit. When the president, known for almost exclusively wearing military fatigues, appeared at a NATO Summit in Germany wearing a jacket in pants that looked at least suit-like, media outlets including the BBC, and even one of Polly Market's own Twitter accounts, noted that he'd finally donned a suit. However, the resolution of the market to yes was challenged, punting the decision to

UMA, where whales have been pushing for a no outcome. And despite the flood of reporting on the suit from various news agencies, collated by some Pollymarket users, Pollymarket issued a clarification on July 1st that, quote, consensus of credible reporting has not confirmed that Zelensky has worn a suit. Bitcoin-backed loans. Crypto-market maker Wintermute. Yes, they're really called that. No, these guys never actually read the sci-fi they name their companies after.

Has just secured a Bitcoin-backed line of credit from Cantor Fitzgerald, the company once headed by Trump Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, who followed the Trump strategy of divestment by just putting his sons in charge. Coin desk says, quote, the lending and borrowing of crypto was taking place on an industrial scale several years back, but many of the firms involved either incurred heavy losses or were forced into bankruptcy as contagion spread through the industry. But Cantor's debut perhaps signals a new and more institution-friendly phase. Arrested developments, Tobias and Lindsay Funke say, Well, did it work for those people?

No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but... But it might work for us. Decentralized in name only. The Solana Dex, Jupiter, was supposedly a decentralized project because it was governed by a Dow, where community members exercised control over the future of the project by voting on various proposals. That is, until a member of the Jupiter team announced that the company would be suspending Dow voting, due to a, quote, breakdown in trust.

Ironically, stemming from concerns by Dow members that project team members were exercising too much control over Dow votes by using their massive token allocations to swing vote outcomes. I guess decentralization only worked for Jupiter so long as the community voted how the company wanted it to. The Web 3 is going just great recap. There were four entries between June 19 and July 1st, averaging 0.3 and 3.000. entries per day. $63.85 million was added to the grift counter. The resupply stable coin lender was exploited for $9.3 million. Self-chain fired its founder after allegations of a $50 million scam.

A New York scammer known as Day 2 stole $4 million from Coinbase users, then blew most of it gambling, and the hack-in token crashed after a private key leak. Worth a read. We're beginning to see people, using technology to fight back against authoritarianism in the U.S. in creative ways. 404 Media wrote about fucklapd.com, a tool aiming to help people identify police officers who obscure their faces and cover their badge numbers. Time and CNN have covered Ice Block, an app that's sort of like ways, except for identifying nearby ICE agents. These have triggered sharp rebukes from the likes of Bordersar Tom Homan and acting ICE director to Todd Lyons, who both described CNN's coverage of Iceblock as, quote, disgusting, and suggested the

DOJ should get involved. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in turn, threatened Ice Block creator Joshua Aaron, stating, quote, we're looking at him and he better watch out. Homan falsely claimed that the app, quote, puts law enforcement lives at risk by noting where ICE operations are taking place, which I should note is a perfectly legal thing to do. Iceblock told the Daily Beast, quote, we will not be intimidated. As long as ICE agents have quotas and this administration ignores constitutional rights, we will continue fighting back. No human is illegal. If you enjoyed the piece I recently shared by 404 Media highlighting testimony from teachers about how AI has impacted their teaching, I suspect you'll also really like a new series from Brian Merchant of Blood in the Machine,

titled AI Killed My Job. In the first installment, he highlights stories from tech workers whose jobs have been disrupted or have even disappeared, as managers use AI to justify making workers' lives even worse or firing them outright. Future issues will feature workers from other fields, and there will be a video edition, too. That's all for now, folks. Until next time, this is Ben, Molly White. Thanks for listening to this issue of the citation-needed newsletter. If you would like to support my work with a free or pay-what-you-want subscription to the citation-needed newsletter, or if you would like to receive these issues in your email, go to citation needed.news. Sign up. If you enjoyed the podcast version of this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review

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