Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Big Business: Trump off to Blazing Start - Trump Coin - AI Investments - Crypto Mainstream

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

In the January 24, 2025, episode of Weekly Business News, hosts Ryan Alford and Chris Hansen cover current events with a mix of humor and insight. They start with a light chat about the unexpected cold snap in Miami and Greenville, SC, before diving into Donald Trump’s recent inauguration and the launch of "Trump Coin." The hosts explore its potential impact on the cryptocurrency market and ethical concerns.Other topics include TikTok’s recent downtime and how the banking industry is adapting to cryptocurrency trends. With a blend of political commentary, business insights, and personal stories, this episode offers a dynamic take on today’s top headlines.TAKEAWAYS Recent inauguration of Donald Trump and its implications for business and politics Launch of the "Trump Coin" and its impact on the cryptocurrency market Ethical considerations surrounding a sitting president's financial ventures The influence of Trump's branding on the success of the Trump Coin Discussion on TikTok's recent downtime and its effects on social media marketing The evolving stance of the banking industry towards cryptocurrency Speculation on how banks will profit from cryptocurrency transactions Importance of domestic investments in technology and AI infrastructure Overview of the "Stargate Project" and its significance for U.S. data centers Personal anecdotes and humor interspersed throughout the business discussions If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Welcome to Right About Now. It is Friday, January 24th. 2025. It's our weekly business news of the week. Brian and Chris coming to you from Miami and Greenville, South Carolina. What's up, Chris? It's trying to stay warm down here, brother. Warm. I know I'm sitting thinking we're in like the southern world of the U.S.

And it's like 50. Dude, it was 17 degrees in Greenville, South Carolina on Wednesday. You guys get a high of 30? We aren't used to that. I don't have a coat for that shit. Yeah, we did. Like, they called for all the snow last week, and then we got like a nice half an inch late yesterday afternoon.

It just got kind of out of nowhere. I saw eight inches in Pensacola, Florida today. Is that a record? Yeah, it is. It's crazy. Global warming. Yeah, dude. And somebody's going to see him as getting DM.

Oh, that's not how it works. The fact that it's actually getting colder where it's not supposed to is sign of global warming. I know, whatever. So, yeah. What's the series out there. Whatever it is, it was cold here in South Carolina. Still cold, man.

You know, I'm starting to long for that spring and summer. But, you know, I will say this, Chris and I are stepping it up today. You know, we're usually fairly casual. I said, Chris, let's show what we're about today. You know, I got a little, I've wore a button down. I don't think on the show, maybe ever. Chris is rocking black. I got white.

Ebony and ivory. Yes. Yinyang. I know. Looking sharp. Looking sharp. Talking about the business. Giving you the business.

I'm feeling like I need a new setup here, like a desk, a little more professional, you know? I don't know. We're still like business casual. It'd be a good name for a podcast. Maybe one of those walking desks would be perfect.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Here we are, the walking desk studio. But I hope everyone's doing great. We have Trump, who got inaugurated on Monday. It's affected all the news because there's so much business stuff. I'll tell you what, this guy's not messing around. More, I don't know, things enacted in four days than I think Biden got done in four years or at least, I don't know, four quarters. So just flying around, flying around.

It can't keep up with the headlines. It's like AI, this, crypto, that. We got the Trump coin. Sea fire in Gaza. It's like, oh, a lot of changes very quickly happening, you know. I know. This is what it's supposed to look like, you know. It's what peace on earth feels like.

Yeah, peace on earth and activity. And, hey, and the American way, forward, you know, unity, forward. Gearing people together, getting tech together. And all the windows pan, the, oh, is getting richer. No. But you need all these people to make shit happen. They make opportunities and jobs happen and all that. It does trickle down, folks.

Not saying that's the only way. I'm not always saying it's top down. But I'm saying top down does work when you need to get activity moving. And you need all the politics and bullshit out of the way. So so far I like what I'm seeing, you don't have to like everything. But lots of good stuff. You know, I will say it is a fine line with the Trump coin. Like, he's in office.

And he, look, I love him for it and also raise my eyebrow to him, you know, like for the same thing. He's in the public eye. He gets free press every day as a person, you know, removing the presidency from it that you and I, no one else gets. because he's the president of the United States, and he was voted in. But, you know, launching a business venture, the Trump coin, I don't know all the financials behind it, but I would assume it just goes, I think he owns 80% of it, him and Melania. It does go, that's convenient.

Right? It's interesting because up into this point, we've had a lot of, you know, kind of celebrities and musicians and stuff try to do their own coins. And none of them really work or they're kind of, And I get it to a degree. Part of it's more of a community builder, like collector. Yeah.

Something right. Trump is like the king of merch, dude. And this is really just like another level of merch in a way, you know? Yeah. Totally. Community in another way. And honestly, I'm shocked it took this long. There's been some coins related to him, but not directly.

But does it give you heartburn at all that he launches it so, it's so beneficial to his personal bottom line. He launches it the day before he's inaugurated. I don't have a problem with it personally because as a crypto guy, and I talked with some friends about this yesterday, because we were all kind of had the same conversation. Like, it's this bad taste. And a lot of people got turned off more when the Valania coin dropped,

the barren coin where they're like, all right, Trump's won, but now you're kind of trying to just cash in on everyone. Right. However, as a whole, I'll tell you, my dad called me last night. Well, Trump launched a coin. my dad doesn't know anything about crypto. So I'm happy with just the awareness it brought to crypto as a whole. And that's where I think Trump is smart.

I think there's more to this than just, I don't think Trump's just trying to make a quick buck. Don't get me wrong. They made a lot of money. But I think there's more to this than just the meat coin. I think this is a great marketing play to get a lot of people talking about crypto and looking into it. Yeah.

Look, I can, if I'm going to wear the sleeve of kind of, taking the bullshit out and talking all sides a little bit. Even if I've, you know, my personal beliefs tend to slant one. I can understand a little bit of a lot of raised eye a little. I just think, I do think it does open opportunity up for people to get into Bitcoin because you can ride the wave of whatever his coin does too. And so he may own it and it is benefiting him directly, but it is sort of serving the purpose of policy.

It's a fine line. And I could, and I wouldn't, you know, if someone came in to do a debate, I don't know I could, how long I could fight them off on their side of having issue with this on some level. But I can also personally see the upside, you know, more universally like you. And put it this way. I'd rather have him do this and have our Congress and our people in the Senate insider trading that are voting and creating laws just to benefit their portfolios. I think there's more foul play in that because Trump coin isn't related on government contracts

or who gets this contract or where we're going to develop this, where those are the decisions made in the Congress and Senate on these committees, right? Yeah. Where you're directly influencing based on your stock portfolio. Whether Trump owns Trump coin or I own it, it's irrelevant kind of because it really is just novelty in a way, right? I could see him saying, okay, now. Yeah, but I mean, but if, you know, let's go down that road. Like I hear what you're saying, but like four, okay, he comes out four years.

His family, let's just say it holds the value. It says on paper now it's like $50 billion. Like we all know that'll probably go down or whatever. but when he comes out of office, his and his family never comes, you know, serves office again. And Donald Trump Jr. And his sons and his sons and his sons have legacy financial support

from that coin launching because he was president in the popularity that it had. That, I think that's where the Hartford comes in for people, right? Yeah, but I would, I would challenge people. I mean, the man has been a billionaire prior. Yeah. He's opened new hotels since he was president and no one kind of said anything about that. You know what I mean?

And that would require more nefarious activity as far as using your influence to get into certain countries, into contracts, whatever. I think we can all just admit that he gets some leeways that very few before him ever have because of that fact. And I'll say this. And I'm going to just, you know, we're an opinion. So whatever we've been doing with the types of people that are non-business people that are political creatures their entire lives and have no business experience, would you rather there be a touch of reality and a businessman, you know, maybe using that influence to help others and himself? or would you rather keep doing what we do putting in lifelong politicians that make nothing happen, that talk in circles, that never align people in business and in government? So which one would you rather have?

And so no transparency. Yeah. They didn't do this in the dark, right? Yeah, most of us happening behind the dark. You know, Joe Biden is probably a billionaire himself or 100 million. And I don't know, I don't have fax this, but I'm just saying I'm not stupid and I'm cynical. And but, you know, but everything else that was claimed about his son and everything else has come out to be true.

So let's just go down that road. I'd rather have my president make his money off of a coin, a meme coin, than doing backdoor handshake deals with China, right? Yeah. Giving advantages to our adversaries. Yeah. So it is an interesting thing. He's enacted his ability to leverage his name, image, and likeness while in president. It's like the equivalent of a college athlete, you know, in school that now gets to take advantage.

You know, they're seemingly paid, you know, with scholarship to go to school. But we all know they're making billions of dollars on their backs. So now they can take advantage of renamingage of likeness while they're playing football. This is just Trump's NIL play. It's like when you sold red ties and Macy's under the Trump brand. It was like he's had his name on anything you can ever imagine just to. Oh, he's a great one. I mean, one of the best marketers of all time.

Truly. Like, talk about personal branding. He. Oh, God. I mean, Maga, you know, take away all the freaking, you know, tyranny bullshit and like all the, you know, white supremacy, garbage of MAGA. Right. Like, think of how much.

What impact does MAGA had on the economy just on merchandise? Dude. a ton. How many Etsy sellers would be underwater right now if MAGA hadn't launched? And he gave people that ability. He let people use his name and likeness to make money. Yeah.

I don't think he's chasing down people selling MAGA stuff. He also understands brand. That's what, you know, letting it spread. Hey, all press is good press, right? Yeah, exactly. So meme coins are out. ethics concerns very dangerous. The cap is 7.78 billion as right now, FI, just.

Is what? It's 7.78 billion right now is the market cap. How's it doing the coin itself? The coin right now is trading at $38 and one cent. $38? Yeah. What did it start at? Zero.

I mean, but what was it like Monday? Put it this way. Okay, the last, it's went up 1,140% in the last week. Yes. So went from as far as I can see $7 to $38. But I think there's a part of the chart I can't see where it was probably like 0.01 cents. But it definitely ripped inauguration day, you know, obviously dipped out. Now it's kind of balancing.

out or between like the $35, $45.45 mark. So, but, and I heard people talking, is this going to crash? So I made a good point. If you look at Trump's stock, right, a lot of that stock is also built on his brand, not necessarily assets. So, right. And you've said, almost all business now is speculation, you know, like speculative. Yeah, pays be known.

And literally, literally, you know. Yeah. Trump's official quote, My new official Trump meme is here. It's time to celebrate everything we stand for. Winning. It reminds me a little of what

Charlie, wasn't Charlie Sheen? Winning. That is his thing. I don't know if he won or not. Where is that guy? He must have stopped drinking. Yeah, he must have stopped to drink in the crack. Because he just isn't out there anymore.

That is health bad. I'll be doing well. I do too. Kind of miss his antics. I know. So this is how the news works. This is why I'll probably move in like three days a week with the business news, giving you the business.

The TikTok kind of came and went, the ban, since we last, like we would have reported that TikTok is down, but we're now able to report it back up. That's how the news cycles work. You don't record every 18 hours when it was down and back up. So. Yeah.

It's like almost like why I'm scared to talk about a headline because like the news cycle so fast, kind of talk deeper than one article because the shit's happened. Like, oh, okay, TikTok is down. Oh my God, Chris. What do you think about that? Well, now it's back up. You barely got attack reaction videos before it was back up again. Yeah.

I know. I'm crying videos and. And I still, what's funny is the Instagram algorithm will send you stuff that they think you're interested in, even if it's like a week. or five days, you know, like it sends you old and new stuff. I'm getting the, you know, all the guys that respond to everything where they play a video or the news behind them. I'm still getting the ones where, you know, they're talking about how TikTok's gone down.

And like, I'm like, well, this is, this didn't age well. No. It was quick. It was quick. And now back up. I was worried about it because they had cap cut down to the editing app. And that's like my bread and butter, baby. And I was like, oh, yeah, I can't have that Capcat good.

I know. I was kind of like, you know, I don't care about TikTok that much. You and I aren't really huge on TikTok. No. And then when Cap Cut got pulled, I was like, oh, no, I'm going to have to learn a whole new software. And that got brought up. That launched again yesterday, too. I guess that's tied in with TikTok somehow.

Yeah, Chinese owning all the stuff. Getting all your data, Chris. All your, you know. you're cutting all those videos together. What kind of videos you're cutting? Damn. They got that evidence on you. I work out videos and my coaching promotion videos.

They figured me out. They know how to get to this guy. Yeah, they got to you. But yeah, Trump, and I gave him like a 60 day. There's talk about it getting bought. I saw, you know, several people making plays. And I saw

Kevin O'Leary, one of those. One of the guys making a play. Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank. Yep. Perplexity. Can you play with the perplexity on your app? Like the browser? No.

It's a, you know, I've tried to use it. It's interesting, but it's not taking it over Google for me yet. But supposedly they were suggesting a merge. They've got a lot of backing. Bezos,

a lot of other big guys. But Kevin O'Leary reportedly offered 20 billion in cash for TikTok. But the way billions just get thrown around now is like millions, like, you know, 15, 20 years ago. Yep. And, you know, people use that words a lot. That's a lot of damn money.

It's a lot of O's. Yep. I think they're going to end up having to sell this thing. I don't think Trump's going to allow them to just status quo. I mean, I think he's giving them 60 more days and then he's going to do what Trump does and he's going to follow through. be like, all right, you're not, because I think bite dance was holding out that maybe this would just go away. Let's be honest.

They don't want to sell. We talked about it like probably seven months ago, you know? Yeah. And I know offline we had talked about even like TikTok shop, is that something you should be getting involved in? And even I kind of, a lot of guys I know in it were like, no, nothing's going to happen. And I think people really have been just kind of, oh, I decided out of mind. and then boom

that's a rug pulled out from under him. Yeah, I think Biden's just thought, oh, Biden's not going to do what he says he's going to do. And then Biden didn't really have to

because it so conveniently, you know, happens right when Trump comes in. So Trump goes, all right, you're on my watch now. You got 60 days. So I think they'll end up selling,

or at least partnering or doing something. I don't think Trump's going to know this led it stay status quo. No, yeah. And not only they should. I mean,

nobody wants World War III and China and the U.S. at odds, but they are an adversary on some level. It just is what it is. And I'm not saying that the people are necessarily adversaries, but the governments definitely are. And the interests definitely don't align at all. So we'll see where that goes. So all you TikTok lovers just, yeah. Start posting on Instagram. Yeah.

Move over to the adult platform. I guess. I don't know. I just, it's more just invested there. I'm on TikTok. I got the blue check. It's great. Thank you.

But it's like, you know, I just don't have time or the energy. You know, when the team gets a little, if I got one more person on the team, they would, TikTok would probably be on the list of like more than what we do now. Yeah. But until then. you guys can find us. Yeah, definitely not going to spend a lot of energy in it until we find out what's going with this.

Bank of America says the banking industry will embrace crypto. Congratulations. Way to wise up, buddy. And the Department of No Shit. Yeah. You got the president, all his people. He's got a meme coin out, man. What are you going to do?

Not support it? And I don't know. The banks, I posted we talked about last week. I got a little side eye with the banks right now. And I believe we mentioned last week that the banks would be announcing that they would become custodians for crypto. Yes. We did. And here we are.

They're realizing money's changing and they still want to get their clip. Yeah, they want to get those record profits like they've been getting. And, hey, they're devising plans as we speak in the, how do we take it out of the customer's ass department is they're meeting right now. What's the acronym for that? H-2-A-C-A, how to, you know, take more money out of America's pockets. How many fees can we get on crypto? You know there's someone in the fees department concocting this right now. Now, how many fees can we get on crypto and for what?

Transaction fees. Late trade fee. Yeah. A Bitcoin risk awareness fee. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I know what you're up to. You dirty banks.

F-5 bucks. You don't need a bank. You can use your own wallet. Yeah. But at a certain point for business, It's tough, like to not have a U.S. Bank. I'm not saying it's, I'm not saying you can't. A lot of people get away with it.

Yeah. I think for things like getting a mortgage, right? Right. I still got to play that game. For now. Yeah. But it's going to be interesting to see this. It will be interesting.

But I'm just glad the banking industry is coming along here. Always late to the game and early to the profits. Welcome to the party. They're too busy counting their money from fourth quarter. There's record profits. What else is on your mind this week? You know, we've got, it's just Disney. Like I'm saying, it's dizzy, dizzying Trump's enactment.

Like, you've got the AI task force. You see this thing. So the big players on the stage coming out. And basically 500 million could, a billion, another B, commitment here for these data centers. This is a big, I think it's a bigger deal than it may be being made out to be. Like it's, I agree. Like to have this on our, it doesn't sound sexy. Yeah. But have it on our soil, which is what ultimately Trump is up to here. It needs to be on our

soil under our control, not relying on others. And it's not big, because Chris, we can't help the free world and others if we're, We're relying on others to help the broader world. It's a mouthful, but I think you know what I'm saying. It's like, so this stuff needs to be on our turf and under our control so that we can make sure it's used both for our interests and for our allies. So I get it. I mean, everybody wants to talk about the cost and I get that too. We'll see where that goes with overall costs and certain things and tariffs and all that.

I hear you. But this is a big deal, especially with what's going on with AI and how important it's going to be, how it's going to dictate a lot of industry and things. So got $100 billion to start. We need to invest in America. Yeah. Outsourcing clearly hasn't worked for us. We've lost our power.

Yeah. Or lost a larger percentage than we should have. Stargate. project. This is a very large investment in the future that, investment that affects all of humanity. Trump touts joint venture between soft bank, open AI, open AI, and Oracle worth 500 bill, billions. The three tech CEOs have joined in president Donald Trump's multi-billion dollar artificial intelligent infrastructure project, defended the venture as an investment that impacts all of humanity.

President Trump unveiled a massive AI infrastructure project from the private sector on the first full day of his second term in office. Trump announced that SoftBank, Open AI and Oracle had joined, created Stargate to build data centers in the U.S. for powering AI. I mean, that's what all that says, computing power, large data centers, lots of power, energy and heat. You've been in a data center walked in place where like all the computers are on. like the back servers. It's hot. How much fucking heat that shit puts out? Crazy.

You want to get close to the sun. That's close to it. You got fans going everywhere. There's data. What it takes to power these things. They think mining crypto takes a lot. Damn. I was going to say, I've been in those and those are loud and hot.

Yeah. The operating operations, a lot of energy. It's so funny, the modern mining. You know, used to be down in the depths of a pit. now we're in a sweaty sweaty matrix. You know, the stories that come true, you know, the predictions that end up real. I just don't want to get plugged into like a matrix. I want to like wake up and be in like a big vat of nastious.

Jelly, Nickelodeon plasma, whatever that shit is. I don't. I don't want my brain plugged into the data center. It's fascinating. What's cooking the rest of the week? Weekend for you, Chris. Any big plans? I had a wedding this weekend.

There you go. Celebrating some love. Oh, nice. Don't do it. Wedding Crashers. What a great. You're going to crash it? You know, like you've taken a date or anything?

No, I'm just going with all my old friends from like, single Chris got. Hey, anyone listening? Single Chris. Hey, date to the wedding, you know, got Miami, got a nice dog. America's most eligible bachelor. We'll start the right about now bachelor show starring Chris Hanson. So I got you dressed up today, Chris, you know? Oh, for the new segment.

Bachelor Chris. We had Crypto Chris last week. Now it's Bachelor Chris. Yeah. Oh, stay singing why you can. Enjoy it. It comes for you. No.

She doesn't listen. No. Look, great marriage is great. Bad marriage is bad. I get both of those. phone calls from my friends. I get the good ones and the bad ones. So I'm just sitting kind of. Yeah, right. You're right in the middle. Playing therapist at this point, it feels like. Exactly. Well, we don't know what's going to be up. What Trump, one more week. We might have

27 things to talk about with one more week when Trump really rolls the sleeves up. You have a busy. Yeah. Busy couple segments. Exactly. That's why we're rolling the sleeves up. We're taking the BS out of business. You're to find us. Ryan is right. Find highlight clips. All our sponsors, including Exponent X marks the spot for energy, plant-based, neutropics, all the good stuff, none of the bad stuff. Official sponsor of right about now. They power us so we can power you. Appreciate Chris Hansen down in Miami.

We're always here in Greenville at Social House. My co-work lounge, come see us. Hey, best co-working lounge, bar, hang out right on the swamp rabbit trail and the beautiful downtown Greenville. Come see it. Give me a shout out. I'm here. We've got the studio. Come see us live. We appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time on right about now. This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a radcast network production. Visit Ryan isright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

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