Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 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.TAKEAWAYSRecent inauguration of Donald Trump and its implications for business and politicsLaunch of the "Trump Coin" and its impact on the cryptocurrency marketEthical considerations surrounding a sitting president's financial venturesThe influence of Trump's branding on the success of the Trump CoinDiscussion on TikTok's recent downtime and its effects on social media marketingThe evolving stance of the banking industry towards cryptocurrencySpeculation on how banks will profit from cryptocurrency transactionsImportance of domestic investments in technology and AI infrastructureOverview of the "Stargate Project" and its significance for U.S. data centersPersonal 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. 

This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts Right About Now. What's up guys? 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? Just trying to stay warm down here, brother. Warm? I know. I'm thinking we're in the southernmost part of the US and it's like 50. Dude, it was, it was 17 degrees in Greenville, South Carolina on Wednesday. You guys got a high of 30.

Like, what's that? We aren't used to that. I don't know. Look, I don't have a coat for that shit. Yeah, we did. It snowed. Like they call 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. And somebody's gonna see me as getting 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, whatever it is, it was cold here in South Carolina. Still cold, man. I, 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, let's show what we're about today. You know, I got a little, I wore a button down. I don't think on the show, maybe ever Chris is rocking black. I got white Ebony and ivory. Yes. Yin Yang. 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 the business casual. It'd be a good name for a podcast. Maybe a walking, one of those walking desks would be perfect. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, here we are at the walking desk studio, but I hope everyone's doing great. We have Trump who got inaugurated on Monday and a lot of them, it's affected all the news because there's so much business stuff.

I 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. Can't keep up with the headlines. It's like AI this, crypto that. We got the Trump coin. Ceasefire.

Ceasefire in Gaza. It's like, Oh, a lot of, a lot of changes very quickly happening. You know, I know this is what it's supposed to look like, you know, earth feels like, yeah. Peace on earth and, and activity and Hey, and the American way forward, you know, unity forward, gearing people together, getting tech together. Now, and all the windows pan the, oh, is the rich 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. 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.

I love him for it and also raise my eyebrow to him, you know, like for the same thing. He's, he's in the public eye. He kind of, he gets free press every day as a person, you know, removing the presidency from it that you and I and 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 him Melania. It does go, that's convenient.

Right. It's, it's interesting because up until this point, we've had a lot of, you know, kind of celebrities and musicians and stuff trying to do their own coins and none of them really work or they're kind of and again, a two degree part of it's more of a community builder, like collector or something. Right. Trump is like the king of merch, dude. And this is really just like another level of merchant 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 bottom 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 to some friends about this yesterday,

because we were all kind of had the same conversation, like is this bad taste? And a lot of people got turned off more when the Volania coin dropped, the Baron 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. 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 meme coin. I think this is a great marketing play to get a lot of people talking about crypto and looking into it. Yeah. I 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'm, 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 been inflicting him directly, but it is sort of serving the purpose of policy. Uh, it's, it's a fine line and I could, uh, and I wouldn't, you know, if someone came in to do a debate, I don't know. I could, uh, 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. Right. 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. You're directly influencing based on your stock portfolio. Whether Trump owns Trump coin or I own it, it's irrelevant kind of, cause it really is just a 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 and the popularity that it had that I think that's where the heartburn comes in for people, right? Yeah, but I would I would challenge people. I mean, the man has been a billionaire prior, like, yeah, he's opened

new hotels since he was president. And no one kind of said anything about billionaire prior, like, 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 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. The you know, Joe Biden is probably a billionaire himself or 100 millionaire. Right. And I don't know, I don is probably a billionaire himself or a hundred millionaire. Right.

And I don't know, I don't have facts is, 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 corn, a meme coin, then doing backdoor handshake deals with China, right? 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. Yeah, 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 the renaming image 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 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. Like think of how much, what impact does MAGA had on the economy just on merchandise?

Dude, a ton. That was something he never- 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, letting it spread. Hey, all press is good press, right?

Yeah, exactly. So meme coins are out. Ethics concerns. Very dangerous. The market cap is 7.78 billion as of right now. FII just. Is what? It's 7.78 billion right now is the market cap. How's it doing? The coin itself. Hold on. The coin right now is trading at $38.01.

$38? Yeah. What did it start at? Zero. I mean, but what what it started? Zero But what was it? Put it this way. Okay, the last it's went up 1140% in the last week

Yes When from as far as I can see $7 To 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 mark. So, but, and I heard people talking, is this gonna 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.

That's right. And you say. I mean, 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. Oh, it reminds me a little bit of Charlie. Charlie Sheen winning. It reminds me a little Charlie, Charlie Sheen winning. That is thing. I don't know if he won or not. Where is that guy? He stopped. He must have stopped drinking. Yeah, he must have stopped to drink in the crack. Because he's 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'm probably moving to 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 record it back up. That's how the news cycles work. We don't record every 18 hours when it was 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 shit's happened like, Oh, okay.

Tick tock is down. Oh my God, Chris, what do you think about that? Well, now it's back up. You barely got to attack reaction videos before it was back up again. Crying videos and Hey, that's still the, 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 Tik Tok's gone down and like, I'm like, well, this is, this is an age well. No, it was quick. And now back up. I was worried about it because they had CapCut down to the editing app. And that's like, I bread and butter baby. And I was like, Oh yeah. Can't have that CapCut go down. 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. And then when CapCut 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 tick tock somehow. Yeah. Chinese owning all the stuff, getting all your data, Chris, all your, you know, you cut all those videos together. Hmm. Kind of videos you're cutting. Damn.

Chinese. That evidence on you. I work out videos. I'm like, I'm going to have to learn videos together. Hmm. Kind of videos you're cutting. Damn. Chinese lunch. They got that evidence on you. I work out videos in my cooking promotion videos.

They figured me out. They know how to get to this guy. Yeah, they got to you. But yeah, Trump, re and I gave him like a 60 day. There's talk about it getting bought. I saw, you know saw several people making plays and saw Kevin O'Leary, 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. I've tried to use it. It's interesting, but it's not taking over Google for me yet, but supposedly they, they were suggesting a merge.

They've got a lot of backing basis. A lot of the big guys, but, uh, Kevin O'Leary reportedly offered 20 billion in cash for tick tock. Harry reportedly offered 20 billion in cash for TikTok. But Billy, I mean, the way billions just get thrown around now, it's like millions, like, you know, 15, 20 years ago. And you know, people use that, those words a lot, that's a lot of damn money.

It's a lot of O's. Yep. I think they're gonna end up having to sell this thing. I think, I don't think Trump's gonna allow them to just status quo. I mean, I think he's giving them 60 more days and then he's gonna do what Trump does and he's gonna follow through and be like, all right.

You're not, cause I think bite dance was holding out that maybe this would just go away. Let's be honest. They don't want to sell it. 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 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 by dance just thought, Oh, Biden's not going to do what he says he's going to do. And then by 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 list, let it stay status quo. No, yeah. And not only they should, I mean, nobody wants world war three and China and the U S at odds, but they, they are at 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 a lot at all. So we'll see where that goes. So all you tick tock lovers just, yeah. So our posts on Instagram. Yeah. Don't 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. Like, but it's like, you know, I just don't have time or the energy. It, you know, when the team gets a little,

I got one more person on the team, they would, Tik Tok would probably be on the list of like more than what we do now. Yeah. But until then, you know, you guys can find us. Yeah, definitely not going to spend a lot of energy until we find out what's going on with this bank of America says the banking industry will embrace crypto. Congratulations. Way to wise up, buddy. In the department of no shit. Yeah. You got the president, all his people. He's got a main 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, how they're, they're, they're devising plans as we speak in the, how do we take it out of the customer's ass department is their meeting right now. What's the acronym for that?

H2ACA. 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. How many fees can we get on crypto and for what? Transaction fees, late trade fee, a Bitcoin risk awareness fee. Yeah, I know what you're up to, you dirty banks.

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 US bank. And I'm saying it's I'm not saying you can't. And a lot of people get away with it. Yeah. I think for things like getting a mortgage, right. Right.

So we 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 that the industry has come 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 dizzying. Trump's enactment. Like you got the AI task force. You see this thing? So the big players on the stage coming out and basically 500 million 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 to have this on our, it doesn't sound sexy, but to have it on our soil, which is what ultimately Trump is up to here 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 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 a hundred billion to start. We need to invest in America because 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, investment that affects all of humanity. Trump touts joint venture between SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle worth 500 billion. 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, OpenAI, and Oracle had joined, created Stargate to build data centers in the US for powering AI. I mean, that's what all this is, 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? It's crazy. You want to get close to the sun. That's close to it. You got fans going everywhere. This data set, 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. Crypto, the operations, a lot of energy. It's so funny. The modern, the modern mining, you know, used to be down in the depths of a pit. Now we're in a sweaty, sweaty matrix. 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 nasty, jelly, Nickelodeon plasma, whatever that shit is. I don't want my brain plugged into data center. I don't want my brain plugged into the data center. Fascinating. What's cooking the rest of the week? Weekend for you, Chris. Any big plans?

I got a wedding this weekend. There you go. Celebrating some love. Oh, nice. Old friends. Don't do it. Wedding crashers. The, uh, what a great, it's a unit crash it, you know, like you've taken a date or anything. No, I'm just going with all my old, old friends

from single Chris got, Hey, anyone listening? Single Chris, Hey, date, date to the wedding. You know, got Miami, got a nice dog. America's most eligible bachelor. We'll start right at the right about now bachelor show starring Chris Hansen. 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 single while 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. And therapists at this point, it feels like. Exactly. Well, we don't know what's going to be up. What Trump's one more week.

We might have 27 things to talk about with one more week when Trump really rolls the sleeves up. Yep. There's a couple of segments. Exactly. That's why we're rolling the sleeves up. We're taking the BS out of business. You're defined us right is right.com.

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Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Ulford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.