Author: YBB Capital Researcher Zeke

Foreword

For President Trump, the world is a huge 'The Apprentice' reality show. In less than a month of taking office, from internal agency staff to foreign leaders, many have already received a 'You're fired' dismissal letter from Trump. In the remaining four years of the show, how can 'Crypto' as a key guest successfully advance? I think we might have to start by understanding this boss.

I. The market likes surprises, but I must control the pace

In Trump's autobiography 'The Art of the Deal', 'controlling the pace' and 'creating surprises' are the core pillars of his negotiation philosophy. The interweaving application of these two strategies not only built his early business empire, but also set the tone for his later political battles.

• 'Controlling the pace': The original quote in the book: "In a deal, you have to set the pace. If you let the other side dictate the timing, you've already lost half the battle."

• 'Creating surprises': The original quote in the book: "The element of surprise is crucial. When they think you've given in, hit them with a new demand—it throws them off balance."

Looking back at Trump's classic negotiation cases during his early business years, starting from the New York Hyatt Hotel project in 1976, Trump has shown absolute control over the pace of negotiations. When the city government demanded that he bear the cost of subway station renovations, he used the threat of withdrawing from the negotiations to create a sense of urgency - suddenly announcing a work stoppage just three days before the city budget deadline, forcing the New York City Council to urgently pass a tax relief plan, ultimately increasing the government subsidy from $40 million to $120 million. In the 1983 Trump Tower project, he even took the delaying tactic to the extreme: when the project was 90% complete, he suddenly sued the contractor for construction delays, using the other party's eagerness to settle the final payment to successfully compress the project payment by 23%.

The 1985 Atlantic City casino acquisition case was the pinnacle of his 'surprise strategy'. After eight months of negotiations, when the seller, the Pratt Hotel Group, had already prepared for the signing ceremony, Trump threw out a new demand to take on $300 million in debt in the last 48 hours. This seemingly crazy move was in fact precisely calculated: he knew the other party had already invested $2 million in legal fees, and the project's bankruptcy would lead to collective debt collection by the banks. In the end, the seller was forced to accept the terms, and Trump completed the acquisition at 40% below market price. This 'sunk cost extortion' later became his signature negotiation style, as described in 'The Art of the Deal': "The best time to exert the fatal blow is when the opponent thinks they have the upper hand." This highly coercive negotiation strategy is both the 'deal law' he advocates and his controversial 'destructive survival tactics'.

Let's bring the timeline back to the present. On February 28, Zelensky and Trump held a globally broadcast US-Ukraine bilateral meeting at the White House, and Trump still used his usual tactics. First, on the eve of the meeting, he reached a lightning-fast breakthrough with Russia on four points of consensus, the most critical of which was that the two sides agreed to lay the foundation for future cooperation on common geopolitical interests and economic and investment opportunities, which would emerge as the Russia-Ukraine conflict ended. The second was to issue a sky-high order demanding $500 billion in repayment, and in the meeting this demand was changed to Ukraine channeling 50% of the future earnings from strategic resources such as rare earths, lithium, and graphite into a 'reconstruction fund' led by the US. The live broadcast of the entire meeting left the world audience stunned, and in the end Trump even demanded that Zelensky leave directly, leading to the breakdown of the negotiations. And the tariff stick he waved outward also met with reciprocal retaliation. President Trump obviously did not have a happy weekend.

From the above cases, we can get a more specific summary of Trump's deal laws: 1. Propose targets far above expectations, forcing the other side to accept suboptimal conditions; 2. Utilize all means to put pressure on the other side to maximize interests; 3. Be unpredictable, making it impossible for the other side to figure out; 4. Habitually use the power of media to endlessly amplify events.

And from the counterattacks of multiple countries, the way to counter this strategy seems quite simple: refuse to deal, refuse to negotiate.

II. Strategic Reserves

After the US-Ukraine bilateral meeting last Sunday, Trump posted two tweets on his social media platform Truth Social, stating that XRP, SOL and ADA will be included in the 'crypto strategic reserves', with ETH and BTC still being the core. After the news was released, the market saw a bull run, with data from CoinMarketCap showing that Bitcoin once rose 9% to $93,969, Ethereum rose 13% to $2,516, Solana soared 24% to $174.64, Cardano surged 70% to $1.11, and XRP rose 34% to $2.93. However, the reaction within the crypto community to these two 'fire-fighting' tweets was very different from the previous supportive attitude. The key trigger was a user on Hyperliquid who was suspected to be a 'rat hole' user, who used hundreds of millions of dollars to 50x long BTC & ETH at a very coincidental time point. According to social media analysis, the reason why the user chose to open a position on the DEX was to avoid obtaining their KYC information by centralized exchanges. And there are many other conspiracy theories, such as the Sunday release was to pump and dump on institutional trading days, and using multiple channels to drain the crypto market as a cash machine.

Trump's surprise announcement of a basket of crypto reserves is still in line with his usual style, but the real purpose is hard to fathom, and given his current appetite, these speculations may still be far from enough. Combining the 'deal laws' mentioned earlier, I personally speculate that some possible purposes may be:

1. Although he mentioned many crypto reserves, the actual goal may just be to get the US to accept a suboptimal situation, i.e. at least ensure that the BTC strategic reserve becomes a reality. This would attract more mainstream countries to buy BTC, with the US still maintaining dominance;

2. In addition to greater influence after being elected president, Trump can also constantly create 'strategic reserve' expectations, just like the past ETF expectations, to continuously control the market trend;

3. Trump needs to constantly strive for influence and rights for this family that has shifted from real estate to crypto, and he is trying to enter crypto from every possible angle;

4. There is obviously a more complex network of interests behind the 'White House selection';

5. Currently there is a clear lack of funding sources to buy crypto strategic reserves, and Trump is using his usual media support to force the seized crypto to be converted into strategic reserves, or to demand the issuance of related bonds;

6. The basic concept of strategic reserves is the planned storage of materials, energy, and financial resources by a country in peacetime. The biggest question about crypto becoming a strategic reserve is that it has no inherent use, even if BTC can be compared to gold. Then the introduction of other altcoin strategic reserves still lacks support. Trump may already have plans to promote large-scale adoption of several public chains in various fields, and the public chain tokens as the 'oil' to access the chain can naturally also be seen as 'material reserves'.

III. Destructive Survival

Donald Trump's decision-making style and personality traits are deeply influenced by his father, Fred Trump. His father, through high-pressure education, defined interpersonal relationships as a "zero-sum game," and this growth environment shaped Trump's competitive mentality of "demonizing" his opponents. Whether it is his confrontational cases in the business and diplomatic fields, or the incident of inciting his supporters to storm the Capitol after his defeat in 2020, they clearly highlight his survival law of attack, destruction, and suppression as the core.

Retail investors in the crypto world often shout "long live the crypto president" due to their common interests, but we need to be cautious that we may not be on the same side as the crypto president, as the concepts of "America First" and "family first" will still be implemented in his crypto world. Although it is not yet clear how Trump will retaliate against non-American and non-family projects, it is clear that he is using a tariff-like war to ensure the "America First" and "family first" in the on-chain world.

1. Priority for American projects through ETFs and strategic reserves;

2. American projects may enjoy zero capital gains tax in the future, while projects he dislikes may be taxed;

3. "Privileges" for family projects, such as regulatory sandboxes and targeted bailouts.

The above three points are the obvious trends of the moment, and in my opinion, Trump may also find ways to suppress the output of non-American mining pools, ensuring that every remaining BTC is as "Made in USA" as possible. Only projects that meet US standards will thrive on the chain, with regulatory interfaces integrated at the protocol layer. And there is much more to be unfolded in the next four years, as the Americanization of crypto has already entered an irreversible stage. As participants in this grand plan, we either choose to ally or choose to "refuse to trade".

IV. The Shadow of DOGE

Trump's friend Elon Musk once pushed the meme-based Dogecoin, originally created to satirize Bitcoin, to a market capitalization and physical "moon" during the 2021 crypto bull market. This joke coin, which originated from internet memes, was initially developed by engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer in 2013 to mock the crazy speculation in the crypto market at the time. Its code was completed in just 3 hours, using an unlimited issuance mechanism, and even referred to mining as "digging holes," completely overturning the scarcity narrative of Bitcoin.

However, Musk has breathed new life into this ancient MEME through social media. He has been calling himself the "Dogecoin Father" since 2019, igniting market enthusiasm with slogans like "to the moon" and "the people's currency," and even named SpaceX's 2025 lunar satellite launch mission "DOGE-1," making it the first space project fully funded by Dogecoin. This frenzy has driven Dogecoin to surge over 7000% in 2021, with its market cap once exceeding $85 billion, surpassing traditional giants like General Motors, completing a reversal from a satirical tool to a top 10 global crypto asset.

The greatest tragedy in the world is to become the person you hate the most. The crypto world is re-enacting the fate trajectory of its object of resistance. Bitcoin, once the "anti-centralization blade," has now become the new carrier of American hegemony - capital flows are following the swing of Trump's tweet baton, from BTC to Trump, Melania, and so-called altcoin strategic reserves, wherever the baton points is the future of crypto, and the vitality of crypto has been lost. When the rebels become part of the establishment, crypto can never escape the narrative closed loop of "the dragon-slaying youth eventually becoming the dragon."

V. Double-edged Sword

Putting aside personal interests, Trump is indeed a legend in the history of American politics and business, and I also believe that BTC will accompany him to the moon. But what kind of innovation can crypto have under the interference of power and high regulation? In the past, I was angry at altcoins, but now I also feel sorry for them. The struggle for attention and power is permeating the chain, just as Vitalik replied to the OG of Ethereum on X:

When I hear crypto Twitter and VC firms proclaiming that "products with over 99% user loss rates, KOL gambler casinos are the most fitting products for the crypto field and market," and calling "longing for better things elitist," do I feel pleased?

And this situation may become even more intense in the future, PvP is just a microcosm, and the so-called best projects in the next four years may only appear in Trump's tweets. The crypto advocated by Trump has always been a double-edged sword, and crypto may eventually split into traditional and American-style circles, and the past public chain war will also be carried out on a larger scale. Under Trump's strong strategy and huge influence, this war may be very brutal, but the rebirth of crypto will inevitably go through this ordeal.