Earn 200 million USD in 30 minutes - A new record for the Trump trade.

Author: Sleepy.txt

In the early morning of October 11, 2025, an account on the cryptocurrency trading platform Hyperliquid caught the attention of traders.

On that day, this account did only one thing. It established a large short position on Hyperliquid thirty minutes before Trump announced a 100% tariff on China.

It shorts Bitcoin and also shorts Ethereum.

Thirty minutes later, Trump's news was released, and the cryptocurrency market crashed. Bitcoin fell from $122,500 to $105,000, a decline of nearly fifteen percent. The account owner closed their position and made a profit of $192 million.

On that day, hundreds of billions of dollars in leveraged positions were liquidated across the entire network, and countless retail investors watched as their accounts went to zero.

The account's trading records for shorting Bitcoin and Ethereum; Source: @mlmabc

On Twitter, on-chain analyst @mlmabc wrote: "This is just a public trade on Hyperliquid, imagine what he did on centralized exchanges or elsewhere. I am very sure he is the key figure in today’s events." This tweet quickly garnered over a million views.

A thirty-minute window with a revenue of 192 million dollars.

When these facts are placed side by side, the word "coincidence" seems so powerless.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Someone knows earlier than the market

Five months ago, the nonprofit investigative organization ProPublica released a lengthy investigative report spanning tens of thousands of words. The title is direct and sharp: "More than a dozen U.S. officials sold stocks before the market crash caused by Trump's tariffs."

The content of the report is more impactful than the title. Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, at least a dozen senior officials from the executive branch have made unusually well-timed stock trades with congressional aides. They completed their sell-offs before the market plummeted due to tariff policy.

Tobias Dorsey, the Acting General Counsel of the White House Office, is responsible for providing legal advice to White House officials, including the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

On February 25 and 26, 2025, he successively sold index funds worth between $12,000 and $180,000, as well as stocks from nine companies.

On the morning after the transaction was completed, Trump announced on social media that the significant tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China would be implemented as planned. The S&P 500 index fell nearly two percent that day, and the cumulative decline approached eighteen percent six weeks later.

In response to media inquiries, Dorsey stated that selling the stock was a decision made by his wife to pay for tuition, and he himself did not possess any non-public information.

Marshall Stallings' operations are more eye-catching. He is the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement at the Office of the United States Trade Representative, a position that is most sensitive to policy trends.

On March 25 and 27, 2025, Stallings sold stocks of Target and Freeport-McMoRan, with amounts ranging between twenty thousand and thirty thousand dollars. Strangely, these stocks were just purchased by him a week prior. A few days later, Trump announced the implementation of the harshest round of tariffs. Target's stock price plummeted by 17%, and Freeport-McMoRan fell by 25%.

Facing questions from reporters, Stallings chose to remain silent.

Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath is a senior official at the State Department, and until April of this year, she was serving as the ambassador to Peru. Her trading records show that between March 24 and 25, 2025, she sold stocks worth between $255,000 and $650,000 while simultaneously buying an equivalent amount of bonds and treasury funds.

On March 31, just two days before Trump announced the "Liberation Day" tariffs, she sold off market-wide stock funds worth between $15,000 and $50,000.

After the market crash, Syptak-Ramnath bought back another fund of the same amount. She explained to the media that these transactions were driven by "family obligations" and "responses to economic changes," and denied having any insider information.

There are many similar cases.

Current Ambassador to Slovakia, Gautam Rana, sold a total market index fund valued between $830,000 and $1.7 million on March 19. This was one week before Trump announced car tariffs and two weeks before "Liberation Day." Rana declined to comment on any further inquiries.

The most notable is Attorney General Pam Bondi. On April 2, 2025, she sold Trump Media stocks worth between one million and five million dollars. After the market closed that day, Trump announced the "Liberation Day" tariffs, and the market immediately plummeted.

According to ethical standards, Bondi needs to liquidate these holdings before early May, but she did not explain why she chose to sell on that day. The Department of Justice also remained silent.

ProPublica reporters Robert Faturechi, Pratheek Rebala, and Brandon Roberts wrote in their report that these transactions may have violated the STOCK Act, which was enacted in 2012 and prohibits any public officials from using non-public government information for securities trading.

But in thirteen years, it has never been used to prosecute anyone.

The market obeys tweets

If the previous trades could still be somewhat explained by "coincidence," then Trump's actions on April 9, 2025, made that explanation utterly pale.

That morning, shortly after the U.S. stock market opened, Trump posted a message in all caps on Truth Social - "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!"

This post made by Trump on Truth Social; Source: Truth Social

Four hours later, he announced a suspension of the most severe tariffs imposed on most countries. The Dow Jones Index surged nearly three thousand points at closing. Any investors who followed his advice to enter in the morning would have reaped substantial returns by that evening.

The question is whether Trump knew at the time he sent that tweet that he would announce a policy shift four hours later.

The answer is self-evident.

This is not the first time Trump has used tweets to influence the market.

As early as 2017, when he first took office in the White House, he became accustomed to using social media to announce policy information, which often triggered violent market fluctuations. By the time of his second term, this behavior had become more frequent and more blatant.

Trump's operating model has formed a clear cycle. He first threatens to impose high tariffs, causing the market to drop and retail investors to panic sell. Then, he tweets that "now is a good time to buy," prompting retail investors to re-enter the market. Shortly after, he announces a pause or reduction in tariffs, and the market quickly rebounds.

At each node of this cycle, the core circle can operate precisely, buying low and selling high, entering and exiting in an orderly manner; while those retail investors who follow the tweets can only repeatedly play the role of the bag holder.

California Senator Adam Schiff and Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego requested in a letter to the White House an "urgent investigation into whether President Trump, his family, and government officials are involved in insider trading or other illegal financial activities." Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren questioned on the floor of Congress, "Is this blatant corruption?"

White House spokesperson Kush Desai responded that these accusations are nothing more than "partisan games" and that the president has a responsibility to "ensure that the markets and the American people feel secure about their economic safety."

Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and former chief ethics lawyer for President Bush, publicly rebutted. He said, "We cannot allow senior public officials, including the president, to make decisions that directly affect stock prices while discussing stock price fluctuations and transactions. If someone in the Bush administration had made similar remarks, that person would have been fired long ago."

But Trump won't be fired because he is the boss.

Beyond power, there are no constraints

In theory, there are three lines of defense in the U.S. to prevent government officials from engaging in insider trading: laws, regulatory agencies, and congressional oversight. However, during the Trump era, all three lines of defense nearly failed simultaneously.

The first line of defense is the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act).

In 2012, under public pressure, Congress passed this law, explicitly prohibiting members of Congress and executive officials from using their official information to buy and sell securities. It was a significant victory, representing the public's expectation for transparency in the system.

But more than a decade has passed, and this law has hardly ever been effective.

In the thirteen years since its enactment, the STOCK Act has never been successfully used to prosecute a single case. Legal experts widely doubt whether it can withstand judicial scrutiny.

In recent years, the U.S. judicial system has been tightening the definition of "illegal insider trading," making the application of this law increasingly ambiguous.

Tyler Gellasch, a former congressional aide who helped draft the STOCK Act, said that decisions made by the executive branch affect market trends almost every day. In principle, they should not personally hold or trade stocks; if they have investments, they should be managed independently by others to avoid the intertwining of power and interests.

But this is only what it "should" be. In reality, no one is held accountable.

The second line of defense is the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

It was supposed to be the gatekeeper of market order, responsible for investigating suspicious transactions, punishing violations, and maintaining the credibility of the market. However, during the Trump administration, the role of the SEC underwent a subtle change.

After Trump took office, he appointed Paul Atkins, who has long advocated for "deregulation," as chairman. After Atkins took over, the SEC suspended or terminated twelve cases involving cryptocurrency fraud. In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order claiming greater power over independent regulatory agencies under the White House. This order significantly undermined the independence of the SEC.

Current SEC Chairman Paul Atkins; Source: Fox Business

According to NPR's data, during Trump's first term, the number of insider trading enforcement cases brought by the SEC fell to its lowest level in a decade, with only thirty-two cases. As he entered his second term, this number continued to decline. The disappearance of regulatory actions has also dissipated the market's fear of violations.

Regulators are no longer supervising but are giving the green light to those being regulated.

The third line of defense is congressional oversight.

According to the institutional design, Congress should serve as a check on the executive branch to prevent the abuse of power. However, in the reality of party polarization, when the same party simultaneously controls both the executive and legislative branches, oversight gradually evolves into protection.

Currently, the Republican Party controls both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly called for an investigation into the dealings of Trump and his administration officials, but have received no response. In the face of increasingly obvious conflicts of interest, Republican lawmakers choose to turn a blind eye, and silence has become the default stance.

Former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent, who served as the chairman of the House Ethics Committee, said: "No one should be allowed to enrich themselves using public office while in office. Members of Congress should never be allowed to engage in the kind of Memecoin trading that the president is currently involved in."

But Dent is no longer in Congress.

Colleagues who stayed in Washington are well aware that challenging Trump means the end of their political careers. So, they have learned to bow their heads.

From doubting crypto to issuing my own coin

In 2019, Trump publicly criticized cryptocurrencies on Twitter, stating that "unregulated crypto assets may fuel illegal activities, including drug trafficking," and asserted that the value of such assets is "highly volatile, built on air."

Two years later, in an interview with Fox News, he reiterated that Bitcoin "looks like a scam."

However, by 2025, everything reversed. Trump announced that he would make the United States the "cryptocurrency capital of the world" and end the resistance against the cryptocurrency industry.

What changes his mind is not the maturity of technology, nor the understanding of financial innovation, but something more direct: interests.

Just a few days before his inauguration, Trump launched his Meme coin, $TRUMP.

This is a token with no practical use, relying entirely on his personal brand and political aura to attract buyers. Once the token was issued, it raised approximately $148 million in a short period, with most of the funds coming from anonymous accounts and overseas buyers.

A few months later, on May 22, 2025, Trump hosted a private dinner at a golf club in Virginia. The invitees were the top twenty-five holders of $TRUMP coins. The next day, they also received a special tour of the White House.

Dinner scene; Source: Rhythm BlockBeats

The dinner event sparked intense controversy.

Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said: "By holding this paid dinner, Trump has put the presidency's access and influence on the auction block. The scale and scope of the corruption is shocking."

Protesters outside the banquet; Source of the image: X

In addition to issuing their own cryptocurrency, the Trump family also founded a cryptocurrency company called World Liberty Financial. This company was jointly launched by Trump and his two sons in the fall of 2024, with the family holding up to 60% of the shares.

In just a few months, World Liberty Financial has raised over $500 million in funding. According to disclosed data, the Trump family received about 75% of the cryptocurrency token sale revenue.

The core figures of the company include Trump's Middle East envoy, real estate billionaire Steve Witkoff, who is both an investor and a co-founder. Trump's two sons are actively promoting the company's projects and tokens in the Middle East and other regions.

After returning to the White House, Trump quickly relaxed regulations on cryptocurrencies. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) suspended or terminated twelve cases involving cryptocurrency fraud, and the Department of Justice also halted investigations into several companies. Meanwhile, several officials who have long supported the crypto industry were appointed to key regulatory positions.

The benefits brought about by this policy shift go far beyond the Trump family itself.

On his campaign list, many cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and investors are important political donors.

Elon Musk is one of the most famous ones. He spent nearly $300 million to help Trump get elected, and he owns a large amount of Bitcoin investments through Tesla and other businesses. After regulatory easing, market sentiment has improved, and the prices of crypto assets have soared. Musk's net worth has also risen accordingly.

Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University and author of "How Democracies Die," said that he has never seen such open and direct corruption in any modern government.

Former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig also expressed similar concerns. He pointed out that self-enrichment is precisely the form of power abuse that the Founding Fathers of the United States were most wary of. For this reason, they established two provisions in the Constitution specifically to guard against conflicts of personal interest. Trump's actions to profit from presidential memecoin are a typical scenario that they tried to avoid.

Julian Zelizer, a professor of political history at Princeton University, is more direct. He said: "To me, Trump's cryptocurrency dealings seem quite clear. The policy decisions regarding the financial sector are not made in the interest of the country, but for his own wealth accumulation. It's hard to imagine that such decisions could bring any benefits to the nation."

Corruption in the Sunlight

When these fragmented events are pieced together, a complete power realization system emerges.

Trump controls the direction of tariffs and regulatory policies, and these decisions have a huge impact on the market. Before the policies are announced, the core circle often gets the news in advance and quickly lays out their strategies in the market, whether to short, sell, or buy, all depends on the direction of the policies. To evade regulation, they choose to use channels like cryptocurrencies that are harder to trace.

Once the policy is released, the market experiences violent fluctuations. Core insiders close their positions and exit, making huge profits; retail investors become the ones left holding the bag or are liquidated. The SEC turns a blind eye, Congress refuses to investigate, and the law is effectively useless.

Then, the next tariffs, the next policies, the next harvest.

The operation of this system is almost perfect. From information transmission to market response, from layout to cashing out, each link is connected with incredible precision. It does not require secret meetings or underground transactions; everything is conducted in the open, yet no one can stop it.

Nixon resigned due to the wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee, but he did not profit from it. Clinton faced impeachment due to a sex scandal and perjury, but he did not manipulate the market. In the Trump era, corruption was institutionalized, industrialized, and even legalized, yet no one took responsibility for it.

There are multiple reasons for the emergence of all this. The designers of the U.S. Constitution set up layers of defenses for power, yet they never envisioned that a president would so brazenly use public power for personal gain. Partisan polarization has rendered the system of checks and balances ineffective; Republican members of Congress do not oversee a Republican president, even when corruption has become public. The victory of money in politics has created a symbiotic relationship between big donors and the president, who invest in power itself.

The paradox of populism lies in the fact that voters chose Trump because he is "anti-establishment", yet what he has established is precisely a more corrupt establishment.

The thirty minutes in the early morning of October 11, 2025, are a microcosm of the entire corrupt system.

From White House Counsel to Trade Representative, from Attorney General to Secretary of Transportation, from cryptocurrency whales to the Trump family's memecoin, all clues point to the same conclusion: this is a finely tuned, remarkably efficient power monetization machine.

The law has become a mere facade, the regulatory agencies have turned into accomplices, and Congress has abandoned its oversight. The three lines of defense have completely collapsed, leaving only an unrestrained center of power.

Trump proved one thing in his own way: in the twenty-first century, you can openly, systematically, and legally monetize power without paying any price.

When the president becomes the biggest insider trader, when the government operates like a hedge fund, when tweets are used as signals to harvest retail investors, it is no longer a corruption scandal. This is a public auction, and the item up for bid is power itself.

And those ordinary investors who lost all their savings within thirty minutes are just the most insignificant chips in this auction.