Allies blast crypto movement after FTX collapse

Former President Trump’s “big announcement” this week which turned out to be $99 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has made him the target of ridicule from some of his most ardent supporters.

The big picture: The announcement launched a swift round of criticism across the right-wing media landscape – with Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn calling on Trump to fire the person behind the decision.

• “I can’t see it again, make it stop,” Bannon said on his podcast. “Everybody on the communications team and anybody at Mar-a-Lago — and I love the people down there — but we’re at war. They should be fired today.”
• On Twitter, radio host and Trump supporter John Cardillo blasted the NFT release, calling it “beyond wrong” in the wake of FTX’s collapse and the crypto winter. “Who advised him to do this?” he added.
• “Whoever advised him on that, I would fire them immediately,” Flynn said on a show streamed on the conservative video hosting platform Rumble.
• Baked Alaska, a far-right media personality who has pleaded guilty to illegally protesting at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, tweeted: “I can’t believe I’m going to jail for an nft seller.”

Between the lines: However gaudy you might have envisioned a Trump line of NFTs—even after he declared a new presidential campaign—these are gaudy than that.

• The former commander-in-chief declared that “AMERICA NEEDS A SUPERHERO” (that is, only his).

What’s up: On Wednesday, Trump posted to Truth Social that he had a “big announcement,” which trended on social media.

• It turned out to be a number of NFTs at a time when the market for these digital assets has been decimated amid a dizzying cryptocurrency rout.

Of the note: There is no mention of Trump’s campaign in any of the material. The bottom of NFT’s website indicates that Trump’s likeness is used under license: an entity called “NFT INT LLC” owns the copyright to all content.

• It says: “NFT INT LLC is owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Digital LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates”.

In the weeds: The NFTs can be bought with dollars, or packaged ether (WETH). They are hosted on the Polygon blockchain, although the site has not published the contract address yet.

• There will be 45,000 trading cards, and 44,000 will go on sale. Buyers who go directly to the site won’t know which NFT they’re getting until after they buy (or “mint” in NFT parlance).
• Twitter testimonials seem to indicate it’s been a nice one buggy process.
• Buyers who want to pick can go straight to OpenSea and buy on the secondary market, and 10% of the purchase price goes back to the issuer.

Flashback: This offer is something of a reversal, and in Trump’s case it’s always a previous (contradictory) tweet.

• 11 July 2019 became then president tweeted“I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”