Brandon LaRoque watched his life savings vanish after a crypto balance check tied to XRP. He describes the experience as a haze, losing about 1,210,000 XRP (roughly $3 million) and dropping 12 pounds in seven days. He contacted his local sheriff and police, but there were no cybercrime units to handle such cases, and the FBI said there was less than a 1 percent chance of recovering any of his crypto. He hopes President Trump will work with Congress to make crypto safer and easier for everyone, arguing that people should be able to walk into a bank branch and get help with their accounts, and that legislation is needed to protect consumers.
Molly White explains that crypto is a form of digital asset, with no paper currency, and that most people buy and sell for speculative purposes rather than daily needs. Crypto assets are highly volatile, and many issuers and operators lack transparency and disclosure under current regulation. There have been numerous rug pulls where creators inflate prices and then sell, leaving buyers with losses and little regulatory protection. When firms collapse, ordinary people can lose substantial sums, as seen with FTX in 2022, whose CEO is now in prison, and many fear there is inadequate protection compared with the banking system.
World Liberty Financial is a cryptocurrency platform created by Trump, his sons, and external partners in August 2024. One external partner, Justin Sun, invested and received an advisory role, with the Trump family taking a 75 percent cut of WLFI token sales that are mainly used to signal allegiance rather than provide a product. The Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit has been paused, pending resolution. The crypto industry contributed over $150 million to super PACs and spent around $130 million influencing congressional races in 2024, with plans to fund pro-crypto candidates in 2026; observers warn that crypto could be used to influence policy and emphasize the need for stronger consumer protections.
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