Hackers' Pub

Syntax	Description	Examples
`"` keyword `"`	Finds the string within quotes, including spaces. Case-insensitive. (Escape quotes inside with `\"`)	`"Hackers' Pub"`
`from:` handle	Finds content written by the specified user.	`from:hongminhee` `from:hongminhee@hollo.social`
`lang:` ISO 639-1	Finds content written in the specified language.	`lang:en`
`#` tag	Finds content with the specified tag. Case-insensitive.	`#HackersPub`
condition condition	Finds content that satisfies both conditions on either side of the space (logical AND).	`"Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
condition `OR` condition	Finds content that satisfies at least one of the conditions on either side of the OR operator (logical OR).	`#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
`(` condition `)`	Combines the operators within the parentheses first.	`(#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" OR "Hackers Pub") lang:en`

Molly White @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io

11/19/2025, 10:21:24 PM

Public

Crypto prices have slumped for two months, erasing the “Trump pump” that pushed bitcoin above the $100,000 mark. Some are worried this is the beginning of the next bust in a market defined by its often catastrophic boom-and-bust cycles.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol #CitationNeededNewsletter

Bitcoin has fallen back below $100,000, wiping out much of the “Trump pump” gains over the past year. After a two-month slide, some fear this is the beginning of another bust in a market defined by its often catastrophic boom-and-bust cycles. With heavy leverage across crypto trading and misconduct that often stays hidden until falling prices apply pressure, collapses can be swift and brutal — as 2021–2022 illustrated — and some traders worry we’re due for a repeat.

On November 3, the major defi protocol Balancer suffered a $110 million exploit, which also affected some protocols that reused Balancer code. Then, a $93 million collapse of the Stream Finance yield platform the following day led to $285 million (that we know of so far) in contagion across the crypto ecosystem, including to projects like Elixir’s deUSD algorithmic stablecoin.1 The aftershocks of these defi failures, combined with faltering crypto prices and extremely jittery macroeconomic conditions, are already leading to wider fallout.

On November 17, the tracking platform DappRadar announced it will shut down after seven years, calling the business “financially unsustainable in the current environment.”2 The rout has dragged down stock prices across crypto firms like Circle, Coinbase, and Gemini.a Shares of digital asset treasury companies — a big trend earlier this year, in which publicly traded firms with core businesses unrelated to crypto pivoted to amassing large crypto treasuries — have been sliding for even longer. MicroStrategy (now just “Strategy”) is down 50% since the summer. Nakamoto, the bitcoin treasury vehicle led by Trump ally David Bailey, has cratered more than 95% since its August merger with the healthcare company KindlyMD.

It’s too soon to tell whether this slide is just the beginning of another crypto apocalypse, or if it’s just routine crypto volatility. Either way, I’ll be here to chronicle it — except for my scheduled hiatus beginning November 26. If history is any guide, that’s exactly when the market will choose chaos.

Molly White @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io

11/19/2025, 10:23:58 PM

Public

Trump has announced a partnership with a Saudi firm to create a new Trump hotel in the Maldives. He plans to fund it by “tokeniz[ing] the development phase” and selling the tokens to US retail crypto traders.

Under any pre-Trump SEC, the tokenized hotel development would likely be considered a securities offering, with risk disclosures and protections aimed at keeping everyday people from being fleeced. But Trump’s SEC picks seem more occupied with advancing his crypto ambitions.

The hotel project is being developed with Saudi partners, making it another arrangement that boosts Trump’s crypto ventures while White House actions benefit the same government. The hotel announcement landed the same day Trump approved selling F-35s to Saudi Arabia.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #USpolitics #USpol #CitationNeededNewsletter

Trump business interests
Newest on President Trump’s rapidly expanding list of crypto ventures is a Trump-branded hotel and resort in the Maldives, which the Trump Organization says will be financed by “tokenizing” the project’s construction phase on a blockchain and selling the tokens to US retail investors.34 The Trump sons and some of their crypto business partners have lately been eagerly pitching the idea of new projects involving both real estate and blockchains [I94], which they present as an opportunity for retail investors who they claim have been unfairly excluded from high-risk real estate investments — rather than what it plainly is: an opportunity for Trump to start bilking everyday people as well as institutional lenders, contractors, and laborers.

Details of the tokenization scheme are scarce. The Trump Organization has not said whether buyers will receive any share of resort revenues, or indeed any benefits at all. But its statement that the project “tokenizes the development phase itself, offering investors the opportunity to participate in a high-growth, premium real estate project from inception” reads like a textbook securities offering under any pre‑Trump SEC. After all, the Howey test — the test to determine if an instrument qualifies as an investment contract under federal securities laws — involved a 1946 case in which a Florida company developed their orange farming operation by selling real-estate contracts to investors without agricultural knowledge or experience, with a promise that the company would farm the groves and generate profits on investors’ behalf.

Image: A rendering of a teardrop-shaped platform floating on the sea, about 1/3 of which is an indoor hotel area, and the remainder of which is a pool and deck area.

The project is being developed with the Saudi company Dar Global, continuing the now-familiar pattern of lucrative Trump administration and family deals with Persian Gulf governments and companies. Congressional and public outcry over apparent corruption and ethics violations involving a $2 billion UAE investment in Binance denominated in the Trump family’s stablecoin (which would route tens of millions in interest on the reserves to the Trumps) [I83], a White House–brokered AI-chips deal with the UAE [I93], and another White House deal granting the UAE a 15% stake in TikTok [I94] evidently have not slowed Trump’s pursuit of similar arrangements.

The Trump Organization’s announcement came the same day that President Trump announced the US would sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, after the country’s leadership appealed to him personally. The move angered Israel, given the potential to shift the region’s military balance, and it stoked fears among US military intelligence officials that the UAE would share the technology with China. The sales will still need to be approved by Congress.5

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