It's the Brian Lair show on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone.

Now rising in Washington as a controversy and possible corruption scandal involving President Trump the way he's personally profiting off the crypto industry.

Once a crypto skeptic, Trump changed his tune and said things like this on the campaign trail last year.

I'm laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the

Bitcoin superpower of the world. And now, by some estimates, he has increased his personal wealth

by billions of dollars by helping launch a crypto exchange called World Liberty Financial last

October, issuing Trump and Melania meme coins since,

and also from a $2 billion investment deal, he recently announced with an Emirati investment

fund backed by the government of Abu Dhabi, as reported in the New York Times.

So is this okay, or is this corruption?

Trump says, no, it's not corruption because his sons, not he himself, control the company.

Others, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, say yes it is.

She refers here to the big crypto exchange called Binance.

Binance and the foreign investment firm are going to use Donald Trump's stable coin to finance their

transaction, essentially giving Trump a cut of that $2 billion deal. Boy, looks like corruption,

smells like corruption. Senator Elizabeth Warren will explain stablecoin, and it's relevant because, sure enough,

a crypto-related bill regarding stable coin that had bipartisan support got stuck without

enough votes in the Senate yesterday now that all this has emerged.

With us now, David Yaffe Bellany,

technology reporter for the New York Times covering the crypto industry from San Francisco,

and he's been very much on this story. David, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

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