Crypto

It’s the bitcoin boom, baby! I’m bailing on Beanie Babies and investing bigly! | Opinion

Published

1 year ago

December 6, 2024

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It’s the bitcoin boom, baby! I’m bailing on Beanie Babies and investing bigly! | Opinion

I haven’t been this excited about obtaining oil-baron-level wealth since the Beanie Babies boom of the mid-1990s.

Great news, fellow dream chasers! Bitcoin is booming and we are all going to be rich!

If you pay attention to mainstream media sources (I don’t), you’ve probably seen headlines like “Bitcoin tops $100,000 as monster 2024 rally reaches new heights” and “Bitcoin breaks $100,000 barrier amid post-election cryptocurrency surge.”

USA TODAY reported: “The price of bitcoin surpassed $100,000 for the first time Thursday amid expectations that Donald Trump will create a friendly regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies when he heads to the White House next year.”

WOO-HOOOO! It’s raining difficult-to-comprehend cryptocurrency that is apparently rooted in nothing but vibes but somehow still exists, according to the anonymous person or persons who created it! Hallelujah!

From Beanie Babies to bitcoin, baby! Let’s get rich.

I haven’t been this excited about obtaining oil-baron-level wealth since the Beanie Babies boom of the mid-1990s.

Back then we were taking sharp investment advice from people who predicted unprecedented returns on plush stuffed animals with names like Nip the Cat, Inky the Octopus and Bongo the Monkey. They knew what they were talking about, as evidenced by my three mortgages and the 37 large plastic bins filled with Beanie Babies that I call my “attic-based retirement.”

But now the bitcoin craze is buoyed by even-more reliable people: con artists. Chief among them, of course, is President-elect Donald Trump, who has made a fortune and become leader of the free world by persuading people to spend $30 on cheap-looking red hats.

If you can’t count on Donald Trump for investment advice, who can you trust?

Trump is all in on crypto, and he touted the bitcoin news Thursday on his social media site, Truth Social: “CONGRATULATIONS BITCOINERS!!! $100,000!!! YOU’RE WELCOME!!!”

Over the first three quarters of this year, Truth Social made $2.6 million in revenue while losing $363 million, and its stock was trading Thursday at about $34 a share compared with the $66-per-share high in March after it hit the stock market. Needless to say, I will walk through fire to follow Trump’s rock-solid instincts and investing advice.

Trump ally Elon Musk, famous both for paying way too much for Twitter so he could destroy it and for creating the overpriced electric car presently burning in my driveway, is also a strong crypto advocate, and he doesn’t seem at all weird or volatile.

If Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy tell me to buy bitcoin, I’m in!

Same with Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump has paired with Musk to form the made-up Department of Government Efficiency, which is an acronymic reference to “Dogecoin,” which is another type of pretend currency I don’t need to understand to believe in.

The fast-talking Ramaswamy doesn’t sound at all like someone who would show up on a late-night informational and try to sell me a “forward mortgage” to go with my “reverse mortgage,” or a knockoff ShamWow.

So you better believe I’m going to follow the lead of these not-at-all-self-serving billionaires and ignore the so-called experts and Nobel-prize-winning economists out there saying bitcoin is wildly risky.

Just because bitcoin sounds like a scam and looks like a scam …

Did the U.S. Justice Department seize more than $112 million linked to crypto investment schemes last year? Perhaps.

And did federal prosecutor Martin Estrada say in a statement at the time: “Using the methods of traditional con artists, high-tech fraudsters have taken advantage of the publicity and hype surrounding cryptocurrency to encourage an untold number of Americans to invest in get-rich-quick schemes.”

Yes, sure. But that overlooks my desire to get rich quick, which inherently requires a get-rich-quick scheme. Duh.

Primary currency used by criminals? Where do I sign up?!?

Did Eric Maskin, a Harvard professor and winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in economics, recently tell the Miami Herald that cryptocurrencies are “very far from being a safe investment”? And did he also say: “Cryptocurrencies are a very good way of conducting criminal transactions and hiding them under anonymity”?

Don’t threaten me with a good time, Prof. Maskin! When you say “far from being a safe investment,” I hear, “I don’t want you to invest in this great investment so there’s more of it for me to invest in, sucker.”

Nah, I’m going to go with the guys who will benefit from me believing everything they’re telling me. It’s high time I sink my life savings into a thing that doesn’t technically exist.

And if anything goes wrong, I’ve always got my attic full of Beanie Babies to fall back on. Those things are going to be worth a fortune any day now.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

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Crypto

Fed ‘Sweet Spot’ Sends Signal for Bitcoin as Jobs Data Quietly Sets Stage for $100K BTC

Published

12 hours ago

January 10, 2026

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Fed ‘Sweet Spot’ Sends Signal for Bitcoin as Jobs Data Quietly Sets Stage for 0K BTC

Bitcoin’s march toward $100,000 is gaining momentum as cooling U.S. labor data, shifting Fed policy expectations, and geopolitical tensions converge, setting the stage for renewed price discovery and a possible breakout beyond prior all-time highs.

Crypto

Rumors are swirling about Venezuela holding $60 billion in Bitcoin—but crypto experts are skeptical | Fortune

Published

1 day ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

Rumors are swirling about Venezuela holding billion in Bitcoin—but crypto experts are skeptical | Fortune

Following the United States’ capture of Nicolás Maduro over the weekend, a report came out claiming that Venezuela had $60 billion stored in Bitcoin—leading to speculation that the U.S. could lay claim to cryptocurrency as well as oil. Despite numerous reports of the huge Venezuelan Bitcoin stash, however, a crypto forensic firm is skeptical of the claims.

The news of Venezuela’s Bitcoin holding began to bubble up last Saturday, the same day that Maduro was ousted. The digital publication Project Brazen reported that his regime could control $60 billion in the original cryptocurrency—but offered little in the way of proof.

“The article does not mention any addresses as a starting point, making it difficult to verify any of these speculated claims,” said Aurelie Barthere, principal research analyst at Nansen, about Project Brazen’s report.

Barthere is not the first person to express skepticism about the country’s purported crypto treasure trove. Mauricio di Bartolomeo, the Venezuelan co-founder of the financial services company Ledn, told Fortune on Wednesday that the level of the country’s corruption makes the figure hard to believe. He expanded his argument in an opinion piece he wrote for Coindesk.

Estimates of Venezuela’s crypto holdings vary wildly. Bitcointreasuries.net estimates that the country has $22 million worth of Bitcoin. That figure would make Venezuela the government entity with the ninth-most money tied up in the original cryptocurrency, just behind North Korea.

While the exact size of Venezuela’s Bitcoin wealth is unclear, the country has long been a player in crypto. Maduro introduced a token called the Petro in 2018, which was shuttered six years later. Its citizens have also turned to stablecoins as a way to fight their currency’s hyperinflation.

Trump has said that he will “run” Venezuela, and some have speculated that includes seizing the country’s Bitcoin holdings. Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence at Chainalysis, said he could not speak to the likelihood of such a seizure. He did, however, explain what gaining control of assets might look like.

A freezing of assets could occur through centralized services, he says. These services would get a court order for an exchange or an issuer like Tether or Circle who could blacklist an address. The second method is through physical seizure. The U.S. could get control of wallets, devices, and keys through compelled cooperation.

For now, there is unlikely to be a full and accurate account of Venezuela’s Bitcoin holdings until the political situation in the country becomes more stable.

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Crypto

Pantera Signals 2026 Crypto Breakout After 2025 Quietly De-Risked Markets

Published

2 days ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

Pantera Signals 2026 Crypto Breakout After 2025 Quietly De-Risked Markets

Crypto’s biggest gains in 2025 weren’t on price charts but in policy, institutions, and infrastructure, as regulatory reversals, Wall Street access, and onchain growth quietly reset the industry’s long-term trajectory, Pantera Capital argues.