Key Highlights
- Scaramucci claims billions of dollars intended for utility-driven Layer-1s were diverted into high-risk, politically-themed meme coins.
- The focus on “Trump coins” shifted the global conversation from financial innovation to “reality TV drama.”
In a fiery address at the Consensus Hong Kong summit on February 11, 2026, Anthony Scaramucci identified a primary culprit for the sluggish performance of the broader crypto market: the explosion of politically themed speculative assets.
While the industry had hoped for a technology-led breakout in 2025, Scaramucci noted that “Trump coins sucked a lot of liquidity out of that space,” effectively starving the ecosystem’s “engines” of the capital needed to maintain momentum.
Analyzing the Speculative Drain
Anthony Scaramucci, a former White House staffer and the founder of SkyBridge Capital, has become one of the most vocal critics of the “politicization” of crypto. He argues that while he supports Bitcoin and Solana, the specific mechanism of “Trump-themed” tokens—which often feature 80% insider allocations—is antithetical to the decentralized ethos of the industry.
Liquidity is the lifeblood of crypto markets. Scaramucci explained that retail capital, which typically cycles from Bitcoin into mid-cap utility tokens (altcoins), was instead captured by the “gravity” of political memes.
This created a vacuum where billions in USD and stablecoins were used to gamble on “Trump coins,” which Scaramucci compared to “Idi Amin level corruption” due to their opaque distribution models in January 2025.
The impact was most visible in the Altcoin Market Cap (TOTAL2). While Bitcoin remained relatively stable due to ETF inflows, the “rest of the market” suffered. Scaramucci noted that projects focused on transaction verification and tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs) were ignored by a retail audience fixated on political volatility.
The siphoning of liquidity reached a fever pitch in late 2025. Scaramucci admitted that his own bullish price targets were impaired because he “missized” the sheer scale of this speculative rotation. He noted that the “reality TV drama” surrounding these coins peak precisely when the industry should have been presenting a unified front for legislative clarity in Washington.
Political Tokens Are “Bad For Country”
Scaramucci argued that these tokens are “bad for the country” and the industry because they provide ammunition to skeptics. When regulators see “slop” and “brainless defiance” in the form of insider-driven meme coins, they are less likely to pass favorable legislation like the Clarity Act. This speculative fever essentially “burnt the hand” of the industry, making it harder to convince institutions that crypto is ready for the “circulatory system” of global finance.
The recovery, Scaramucci believes, requires a return to “anti-fragile” fundamentals. He pointed out that while the meme coins were garbage, the fact that networks like Solana handled the volume of these “Trump tokens” without crashing is a testament to the underlying technology. He predicts that as the speculative fever breaks, liquidity will finally flow back into high-performance protocols, setting the stage for a $150,000 Bitcoin rally by late 2026.
Beyond the Political Drama
Scaramucci concluded that the “Trump coin” era was a painful but necessary lesson for the industry. While it siphoned vital liquidity and slowed regulatory progress, it also served as a massive stress test for blockchain throughput. As the market moves past the “reality TV” phase of the cycle, Scaramucci expects a flight to quality that will favor projects with real-world utility over political memes.
Also Read: “We Are in a Bear Market,” Admits Scaramucci, But the End is Near