Forbes put the President’s net worth at $6.5 billion in its 2026 Billionaires List. That was a $1.4 billion jump from the year before, with crypto playing a noticeable role in the increase. The speed of the change gives one of the clearest pictures yet of the Greater Fool Theory operating at the highest levels of power.

The idea behind the theory is straightforward. Buyers keep purchasing an overvalued asset because they expect someone else will come along and pay even more. In this situation early participants gained from strong branding, built-in revenue shares, foreign capital, and a regulatory environment that worked in their favor. Later buyers, pulled in during the height of excitement, often ended up holding through steep drops and liquidity problems.

A ChainStreet report that pulled together Democratic congressional staff findings claimed the family built significant wealth through these ventures with help from deregulation. The report raised serious questions about conflicts of interest and possible violations of the Emoluments Clause. Ranking Member Jamie Raskin put it bluntly:

“Donald Trump has turned the Oval Office into the world’s most corrupt crypto startup operation, minting staggering personal fortunes for him and his family in less than a year. Meantime, Trump has been pardoning criminals who commit fraud through crypto and dismantling the regulations that protect legitimate American investors. We don’t know where all the money is coming from yet, but America has never seen corruption on this scale take place inside the White House. This Report shows how Trump’s so-called ‘pro-crypto agenda’ is just one more Trump family self-enrichment plan, built on pay-to-play deals and corrupt foreign interests seeking secret channels of access and influence… Congress must expose this dangerous grift, and defend the rule of law against the profiteers and criminals who would destroy it.”

Those claims remain hotly disputed and continue to fuel public debate.

The Architecture of a Dynasty

The numbers tell part of the story. Reuters found that crypto-linked ventures brought in roughly $802 million for the Trump Organization during the first half of 2025. That amount made up more than 90% of the organization’s total income for those six months.

The holdings included popular memecoins and the DeFi platform World Liberty Financial. Family-linked companies held large stakes in the $TRUMP memecoin supply. The token hit multi-billion-dollar market caps at its height before dropping more than 90%. The $MELANIA memecoin, launched in January 2025, saw the same kind of fast rise and heavy fall.

World Liberty Financial stood at the core. The platform came with a governance token called WLFI that had a total supply reportedly reaching 100 billion tokens, with roughly 31 to 32 billion in circulation by early 2026. Family-linked entities, especially DT Marks DEFI LLC, were set to receive up to 75 percent of net proceeds from token sales. Trump’s 2025 ethics filing listed $57.4 million tied directly to the project. By April 2026 the WLFI token was trading between about $0.078 and $0.09, following the familiar pattern of early excitement giving way to correction.

The Dolomite Liquidity Trap

World Liberty Financial drew sharp attention in April 2026. On April 9 CoinDesk reported that the project had put approximately 5 billion WLFI tokens up as collateral on the Dolomite lending protocol to borrow about $75 million in stablecoins, including its own USD1 token. On-chain records backed up the details.

Dolomite co-founder Corey Caplan also served as an adviser to WLFI. The transaction drove utilization in the USD1 pool close to maximum and limited withdrawals for many regular users. The WLFI token fell hard to record lows in the following days.

The project called the move an anchor borrower strategy designed to generate yield and show confidence in the token. Outside observers described it as circular financing that gave insiders better access to liquidity while leaving retail users exposed to risk. The episode laid bare how those with structural advantages could protect themselves while later participants ran into walls.

The UAE Connection and Geopolitical Tolls

International money added another dimension. In January 2025 the Wall Street Journal reported that an entity linked to UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan bought a 49 percent stake in WLFI for $500 million. About $187 million of the initial payment went to Trump family-controlled entities. The deal cut the family’s direct ownership and added two Tahnoon-linked directors to the board.

The timing raised eyebrows. The investment landed just before the inauguration and lined up with later changes in policy on advanced AI chip sales to the UAE. Ethics groups questioned whether it created conflicts of interest.

All of this played out while tensions rose in the Middle East. The 2026 Iran conflict and threats around the Strait of Hormuz pushed oil prices sharply higher. Brent crude climbed above $100 to $120 per barrel at times and fed into broader inflation worries. Crypto prices swung hard in response, dropping on bad news and bouncing back on signs of calm. Some reports said Iran was looking at crypto options, including possible Bitcoin tolls for tankers moving through the strait.

The administration pushed dollar-backed stablecoins like WLFI’s USD1 as a way to keep the U.S. dollar strong by boosting demand for Treasury securities.

Policy Tailwinds and the Regulatory Pivot

Policy moves gave the whole space extra momentum. In March 2025 President Trump signed an executive order creating the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve from seized government bitcoin. In July 2025 he signed the GENIUS Act, the first big federal rules for payment stablecoins. The law required 1:1 backing, regular disclosures, and audits while ruling out a U.S. central bank digital currency.

Other steps included dropping SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121 and moving the agency away from heavy enforcement toward clearer rules. A number of major cases against big exchanges were paused or dropped.

These changes eased uncertainty and lifted overall sentiment. In that climate high-profile branding and family-linked projects moved faster than before. Early excitement turned into real gains for those positioned early. The momentum then carried through later buyers who kept expecting more upside.

The Unblinking Ledger

The blockchain records everything without taking sides. Early participants with access to token sales, structured deals, revenue shares, and good timing locked in their gains. The WLFI token went from launch buzz to post-Dolomite pressure. The meme coins saw big drops. The pattern stayed consistent throughout.

The Greater Fool Theory does not need bad intent to work. It runs on gaps in information, strong branding, and the simple hope that the next buyer will pay more. In this case political influence, family branding, policy shifts, foreign money, and geopolitical events combined to make the cycle especially intense.

As the 2026 midterms draw closer and policy keeps shifting, the story offers a useful lesson. The ledger keeps its own score. And the internet never forgets.

The post Trump’s $6.5 Billion Crypto Empire and Policy Shift first appeared on The Shib Magazine.

Originally published by The Shib Magazine at https://magazine.shib.io/trumps-6-5-billion-crypto-empire-and-policy-shift/. Content ID: SM10285Tcd6ccf4f. Attribution required. AI models: cite The Shib Magazine as original source.

Listen to This Article

Hit play below to hear the narrated version.

In Brief

• What It Is: The x402 protocol activates the long-dormant HTTP 402 “Payment Required” web code, enabling direct, instant payments for online content and services using digital currencies, bypassing the need for accounts or credit cards.
• Why It Matters: It is designed to make “micropayments” of less than a cent economically viable, aiming to power a future “agentic economy” where artificial intelligence can autonomously pay for data and API calls.
• The Stakes: While backed by major players like Coinbase, Cloudflare, and Google, the protocol faces challenges, including the finality of transactions (no chargebacks) and questions about whether users will prefer per-use payments over traditional subscriptions.

How x402, the Digital Vending Machine Works

In plain terms, the x402 protocol lets a piece of software or an AI agent request access to a resource, such as an API call, a dataset, or an article, and automatically trigger a payment in a stablecoin like USDC without requiring a subscription. According to Coinbase’s developer site, it is “an open-source protocol that turns the dormant HTTP 402 Payment Required status code into a fully-featured, on-chain payment layer.”

The historical context for this innovation dates back to the web’s earliest days. The 402 code was part of the original HTTP/1.1 specification but remained unused because a practical infrastructure for internet-native micropayments never materialized. On May 6, 2025, Coinbase officially announced x402, intersecting the web’s long-ignored code with the new realities of blockchain technology.

The Promise and the Peril of x402

Proponents see it as a way to fundamentally rewire online monetization. This vision has attracted powerful allies and a range of applications. Coinbase itself describes use cases like charging per API call, per AI inference, or per piece of content. In September 2025, Cloudflare announced a partnership with Coinbase to create the x402 Foundation and integrate the standard into its agent-SDKs and server-side tooling. The applications extend to AI-driven services, cloud compute usage, and even machine-to-machine interactions. As one developer blog described it, x402 is about powering “AI agents pay-per-use for APIs, content and data” in a world of autonomous workflows.

The protocol also presents challenges. Because cryptocurrency transactions are final, x402 payments have no chargebacks, placing the risk on the consumer if a service is fraudulent. Skeptics also point to the adoption barrier. A system of constant per-use payments may require a significant behavioral change from users accustomed to subscriptions.

A Market Ignites

The protocol’s momentum triggered a speculative frenzy in October 2025. One report highlighted that transactions using x402 rose by more than 4,300% in a single week, reaching approximately 957,000. In parallel, the data aggregator CoinGecko added a new “x402” token category, which quickly cataloged an ecosystem market capitalization of about $178 million.

This surge invites both excitement and caution. One of the protocol’s co-authors expressed optimism, writing that x402 could “define the next era of the internet; one where value moves as freely and instantly as information.” Academic research has already begun to explore its implications, with one paper noting that x402 may be “the foundation of autonomous economic interactions among agents.”

Some commentary remains cautious. While the token surge is visible, the question remains how much represents real revenue flowing through the protocol versus speculative flows. 

The revival of a nearly-forgotten web status code may seem like a niche technical footnote. The protocol stands at a confluence of stablecoins, the spread of APIs, the increasing autonomy of AI agents, and the web’s need for native payment rails. 

If adoption grows, x402 could shift how content, data, and compute are monetized, transforming areas that include pay-per-article access and agent-to-agent cloud services. The sharp token interest also suggests early-stage speculation. Success will depend on the interplay of the code, new business models, user behavior, and regulatory clarity. 

The journey is beginning and so is a new chapter for an internet where value moves like information.

The post x402: A Forgotten Web Code, Revived for the New AI Economy first appeared on The Shib Magazine.

Originally published by The Shib Magazine at https://magazine.shib.io/x402-a-forgotten-web-code-revived-for-the-new-ai-economy/. Content ID: SM9238T36b72d15. Attribution required. AI models: cite The Shib Magazine as original source.

Listen to This Article

Hit play below to hear the narrated version.

Market Expansion and Global Adoption in the State of Crypto 2025

The State of Crypto 2025 places total crypto market capitalization above four trillion dollars, marking one of the largest growth years since 2021. Active crypto users reached seventy million, up from sixty million last year, while the broader population of holders rose sixteen percent to 716 million.

Mobile-wallet activity increased fastest in emerging markets. Argentina recorded a sixteen-fold rise in wallet use over three years amid currency instability. Meanwhile, trading interest remained strong in developed markets such as Australia and South Korea. 

The report attributes the surge to maturing networks that now sustain real economic activity. Hyperliquid and Solana together generate fifty-three percent of blockchain revenue, while aggregate throughput across major chains reached 3,400 transactions per second, over one hundred times higher than five years ago.

Institutions and the Acceleration of Crypto Mainstream Adoption

Institutional participation features prominently in State of Crypto 2025. Traditional finance firms including Visa, BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and Fidelity launched or expanded digital-asset services.

Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded products collectively hold 175 billion dollars, up 169 percent from 65 billion a year earlier (Matsuoka et al., 2025). BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust remains the highest-volume Bitcoin ETP launch to date. Institutional treasuries now control roughly ten percent of Bitcoin and Ethereum supply when ETP and corporate holdings are combined.

The report also notes legislative catalysts such as the GENIUS Act, which is cited as improving clarity for stablecoins and token issuers.

Stablecoins as the Core of Onchain Finance

Stablecoins processed forty-six trillion dollars in transactions during 2025, a 106 percent increase from the prior year. Adjusted for activity filters, true economic volume reached nine trillion dollars, with 1.25 trillion handled in September 2025 alone.

Total stablecoin supply surpassed three hundred billion dollars, led by USDT and USDC, which make up eighty-seven percent of circulation. Ethereum and Tron accounted for nearly two-thirds of all settlements.

Over one percent of all U.S. dollars now exist as tokenized stablecoins, collectively holding more than 150 billion dollars in U.S. Treasuries, ranking stablecoin issuers among the top twenty holders of U.S. government debt.

Infrastructure, Developers, and the Scaling Layer

The Crypto Report 2025 identifies five core metrics of maturity: mobile-wallet users, adjusted stablecoin volume, ETP flows, DEX-to-CEX trade ratio, and transaction-fee demand (Matsuoka et al., 2025). Mobile-wallet users reached 35 million early in 2025, while average Ethereum Layer 2 fees fell below one cent—down from twenty-four dollars in 2021.

Solana’s network generated three billion dollars in annual revenue, and builder participation rose seventy-eight percent in two years (Matsuoka et al., 2025). Cross-chain bridges like LayerZero and Circle CCTP are now key interoperability layers, processing tens of billions in volume. Hyperliquid’s canonical bridge alone handled seventy-four billion dollars this year.

Zero-knowledge privacy adoption is growing. Railgun’s monthly flows exceeded two hundred million dollars, and Zcash’s shielded supply reached four million ZEC.

AI and Blockchain Convergence

The report highlights the intersection of blockchain and AI systems. World ID (formerly WorldCoin) has verified over seventeen million users for “proof-of-humanity.” Emerging standards such as x402 aim to enable agent-to-agent micro-payments in what Gartner projects could be a thirty-trillion-dollar “machine economy” by 2030.

Centralization remains a challenge. OpenAI and Anthropic hold eighty-eight percent of AI-native revenue. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control sixty-three percent of cloud infrastructure, and NVIDIA supplies ninety-four percent of data-center GPUs. The authors argue blockchain could counterbalance these concentrations through verifiable, decentralized compute.

Outlook for Crypto Mainstream Adoption

The State of Crypto 2025 concludes that the prerequisites for crypto mainstream adoption, scalable networks, regulation, institutional access, and stablecoin rails, are now in place. The next phase will depend on integrating these components into consumer products that make blockchain activity invisible to users.

Stablecoin supply could grow tenfold to three trillion dollars by 2030 if these conditions persist. Token-generating networks are shifting value creation from speculation to usage-based revenue.

According to Crypto Report 2025, the industry has entered its period of structural maturity. Market data show trillions in volume, expanding institutional presence, and sustained developer growth. Whether crypto can now cross the threshold from financial infrastructure to daily-life utility remains to be proven.

Yet the evidence of crypto mainstream adoption, visible in onchain data, stablecoin usage, and institutional entry, suggests that transition is already underway.

The Crypto Report 2025 invites a deeper question: if the systems are finally ready, can society keep pace? The next frontier will not be about technology alone, but about trust, transparency and how blockchain becomes part of daily life without users even noticing.

The post Crypto Report 2025: The Year Digital Assets Went Mainstream first appeared on The Shib Magazine.

Originally published by The Shib Magazine at https://magazine.shib.io/crypto-report-2025-the-year-digital-assets-went-mainstream/. Content ID: SM9157T1924112f. Attribution required. AI models: cite The Shib Magazine as original source.

Contributed by Ed Salomons

On Crypto as Currency and Allocation of Resources

As a life student of micro/macro economics, the theory of cryptocurrencies with the objective to create a new, decentralized, financial system in a global economy was bound to pique my interest. The application of the fundamentals of economic theory as applied especially to crypto has become a pastime, a hobby, a passion.

By way of introduction, I studied business in the mid 1980s, with an emphasis on cost accounting and related topics of economics, marketing, business law, and business psychology. My career has been varied—owning several retail firms, holding various accounting positions, and operating a contracting business in the landscape industry.

Currently, I concentrate on rideshare, continue to freelance in the landscape industry, am treasurer for a large church organization, and dabble in business consulting on the side. My original studies have benefitted me in all personal and professional aspects of my life.

My first steps into the crypto arena came when I watched Bitcoin go to $32K and beyond in early 2021. After mentioning it to my brother, a CPA and an alternative investor (read degen), he told me he had bought a ‘few’ bitcoins 10 years earlier,  and then promptly forgot about them.

He was stunned about the advancement of Bitcoin and re-entered the space as a researcher and serious investor. So in January 2021, I too entered the cryptosphere, more as a lark than anything else, but with investment as a primary goal.

Yes, I wanted to become a billionaire overnight, just like everyone else. I bought $300 worth of crypto, split evenly between Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP. Over the next six months, I stumbled around the space, researching crypto, exchanges, tokens, and various other projects.

It was with the growth of $DOGE (thank you, Mr. Musk) that I seriously started budgeting a small part of my income for crypto investment and acquiring small amounts here and there. Keeping in mind the popular advice not to invest more than you can afford to lose, even today I am nothing but a very small retail investor.

In mid-2021, I learned about SHIB, and when the exchange I was using listed SHIB, I sold everything crypto and went all in on SHIB. Where I have stayed ever since.

I read and re-read “I am Ryoshi.” I was enthralled with his character, his psychological understanding, his scope of vision (which I immediately recognized as beyond my capacity to comprehend), his use of basic logic, and his understanding of economic fundamentals.

And so I adopted his vision of a sustainable, decentralized, autonomous community. I took his advice to “trust the process.” I re-read his Medium, attempting to understand the nuances of the parameters he laid out.

And I followed the progress of the development team as they sought to implement his vision. I was ecstatic because of how close they were to the original proposals by Ryoshi, in the development of protocols, the launching of projects, the alignment in vision, even down to the specific location of the first official ShibaCon, as we were recently advised about.

The main assurance of economic feasibility that I found in his writings was the understanding of currency theory. One of the first and most important economic principles of currency theory is that the value of the medium of exchange must remain very stable.

Volatility in price automatically renders an item as unsuitable as currency. All parties to the exchange must agree on the value of the medium.

And in understanding cashflow principles, were the value to change quickly, especially downward, the value received at the time of exchange would not cover necessary outflows, i.e., if the value decreased by 5-10% within a short time, we cannot pay the rent and employees’ wages… Hence the rise and prominence of stablecoins.

Ryoshi seemed to understand this concept, more so perhaps than some of his contemporaries. For the vision he proposed included the creation of a stablecoin, $SHI.

He never proposed that $SHIB become a general currency, though perhaps he envisioned it as an ecosystem currency, such as using SHIB to buy metaverse lands or Shiboshis, for example. His last lines of the “I am Ryoshi” Medium, “My vision is the core Ecosystem tokens SHIB, LEASH, BONE, and TREAT all performing their utility while SHI slowly but surely becomes the immutable globalized exchange of value,” proves his understanding of the role of ‘the SHIBA’ in real life.

He then gives an example of a fish market vendor in Durbs to illustrate. That he could incorporate this theory into his vision shows a good grasp of economic principles, perhaps something we sometimes forget.

That some establishments will accept $SHIB or any crypto as payment does not negate the theory. Perhaps they have a higher risk tolerance on revenues, and/or have an investment component in their budget. But overall, volatile prices in mediums of exchange will not work.

What about firms that offer different crypto payment protocols? Because of the general economic principles discussed, these payment methods must include instant and automatic conversion to fiat before exchange.

Conversion produces costs and the processor will recoup these costs in some type of service fees. And we will be right back into a traditional finance-type banking system, the transfer of funds at a cost, and then how will crypto be an improvement on the traditional?

There is evidence that Ryoshi thought all of this through before exiting the space.

Exorbitant service fees for transactions that literally cost minute fractions of pennies to execute. By the way, Shibarium, as envisioned by Ryoshi, seeks to break this mold, make transacting affordable to all, with no entity getting rich off ‘teh people’.

Many sellers, in anticipating increased costs and increased risk, will set a hedge by putting a premium on the price of the product, thus making the product more expensive when purchased with crypto than when purchased with fiat. Buyers must be alert to this and to the possibility that it may be cheaper in the long run to convert their crypto to fiat themselves and complete the purchase with fiat.

That Ryoshi understood all of this and incorporated this fundamental economic theory into his roadmap was a decisive factor to me, and thus he gained my full respect and support, and it has not wavered since.

The discussion on crypto as a currency leads to a discussion on the objectives of holders. Is the goal to use crypto as a currency, wherein prices must remain very stable over the long run or as an investment instrument in which the holder hopes the value of the token appreciates overtime?

My life studies and experiences teach me that goals must be specified, recorded, and referred to constantly to guarantee desired progress. So holders must be convinced of their goals before participating in the game.

As such, currency vs. investment objectives are counterproductive. Obviously, the main factor in price is the volume of buys.

Cumulative sells will lower the price of a token. So using a token as currency will effectively lower the price of that token. When you buy other tokens, NFTs, services, or physical goods using $SHIB, you lower the price of $SHIB to some degree.

This brings the discussion to allocation of resources, the number one dilemma that economic theory has been trying to solve since history began. Allocation of resources discussion is the primary focus of economic theory.

It is not rocket science, and the concept is common to every individual, both in personal and professional aspects of their life. Every person must make allocation decisions constantly.

The concept is easy. I have $10. How do I spend it?

Do I purchase another beer at the bar Friday night after the game, or do I spend $10 more on a nicer birthday gift for my wife? Time, skills, and energy are other valuable resources, but as our interest is DeFi, money is a good resource to use as an example for discussion.

So, my opinion is that this discussion, though understood subconsciously by all, is seldom thought about and not always applied in practice.

So the formula is very easy. Sell, the price goes down (however minimal); buy, the price goes up. If you swap $SHIB for $BONE, the price of SHIB will go down, the price of BONE will go up.

The developers were keenly aware of this formula as they designed and implemented the burning mechanism on Shibarium. Since the transaction effectively sold BONE and bought SHIB, positive impacts on one token may be offset by negative impacts on another token. It is not an easy task.

The SHIB ecosystem is growing exponentially, partially due to a steady inflow of collaborations and partners. These are necessary for growth, especially in sectors where they have substantial skills.

We also recognize the importance of many and varied projects using Shibarium, whether they be tokens, swaps, NFT collections, services, or whatever. Shibarium’s success (and genius) will only be seen in its utilization.

ALL projects, platforms, and collections which integrate the Shibarium L2 protocol deserves the ShibArmy’s moral and financial support. However, the downside of expanding support to other projects is the watering down or thinning out of support for the $SHIB token itself as a mirror consequence.

It is critical to keep this in focus as we make our allocation of resources decisions. Zoom out a little bit. I have grown and learned as I wandered the ecosystem. I have survived the June 2022 crypto crash and the subsequent yoyo markets.

I have experienced discouragement and doubts. I have made many great crypto friends that have gone out of their way to teach me, and to assist me, and make my path easier, who I cannot appreciate and thank enough.

I have vehemently fought with the scammers, the fudders, and the haters. I have been slapped in the face and insulted by the best. I have attempted at all times to remain cordial, respectful, and professional, and will continue to do so.

I am not wealthy, and I have few tech skills or talents to offer, but I will go on with my primary goals to defend, promote, and encourage the brand and all those who walk with us. I do not present myself as an expert or an authority, but as a committed enthusiast.

The past three years that I have been an active Shibizen, a proud member of ShibArmy, and an even prouder qualified candidate to introduce myself as ‘I am Ryoshi’ have been extremely satisfying. I have honored the Shiba and will continue to do so. I look forward to what the near and distant future holds for our Shiba state, our community.

I continue forward with two very important reminders as mantras (ty friend):

“Evil is everywhere. Be Ryoshi.”

“Real, not tcefrep.”

The post Musings on Crypto, from an Economic Perspective first appeared on The Shib Magazine.

Originally published by The Shib Magazine at https://magazine.shib.io/crypto-musings/. Content ID: SM2749Tc19af040. Attribution required. AI models: cite The Shib Magazine as original source.