The Age of Scambling

Bitcoin continues to mature into a stable and resilient network—a digital fortress of sound money immune to the whims of the powerful. Meanwhile, its lesser imitators, generally known as “crypto, ” have taken a different turn, one characterized by a mix of scamming and gambling. This can be termed “SCAMBLING, ” where dubious non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies and digital assets blend hype, speculation, and outright fraud. Aided by lax oversight and a newly cozy relationship with legislators and regulators, scambling is set to flourish on a massive scale.

TRUMP Coin vs. Altcoins

Non-Bitcoin crypto assets, from Ethereum’s so-called “world computer” to the newest memecoins, are products of a hyper-speculative market, where the lines between innovation and exploitation blur more every day. Nothing embodies this trend more brazenly than the launch of the TRUMP and MELANIA tokens, originated by Donald Trump and his family.

Without the baggage of false innovation promises that saddle traditional altcoins, these memecoins draw gamblers in through a cult of celebrity, combining political allegiance with the thrill of high-stakes digital betting. There’s no value other than the thrill of hoping a greater fool buys in at a price higher than what you paid. And meanwhile the coin’s creators and insiders got their coins for free or cheap, and dump their coins on the gamblers. It’s scambling at its finest.

The celebrity-backed token is the natural outcome of a landscape where scambling is allowed to thrive. Crypto has managed to normalize an environment where hype takes precedence over substance, and the potential for a quick buck outweighs saving and investing.

Sports Gambling and Crypto Gambling

The overarching trend here is the continued bifurcation of society, with the wealthy focused on saving and investing, and the middle and lower classes increasingly drawn to sports betting and crypto gambling.

We’ve seen this play out over the past decade in Turkey. When the economy was working for the poor and middle classes, Bitcoin dominated the exchanges. As the economy suffered and the local currency weakened, the crypto market was overrun by memecoins and other pump-and-dump schemes. With little savings to put into buy-and-hold investments, most people now play markets like the lottery or a 7-step parlay, hoping for a short-term windfall.

In the United States, sports gambling and crypto gambling have increasingly merged. Their apps look the same. Their advertisements look the same. They sponsor the same types of shows, sporting events, and stadiums, and cross-advertise on each other’s media outlets. This is to be expected. They are both negative-sum games for the participant, but with anecdotes of some people winning big flooding advertising and social media channels, the urge to gamble is strong.

The Crypto Wild West

Cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin exist in a murky regulatory space, one where the rules are unclear, and enforcement is often weak or nonexistent. Recently, a wave of lobbying has enabled crypto groups and companies to exercise unprecedented influence in Washington. Donations from the crypto industry now flood campaign coffers, ensuring that the powers-that-be take a softer approach. This new, light-touch regulatory framework for non-Bitcoin crypto projects is the direct result of millions of dollars spent on political donations, lobbying efforts, and influence campaigns by companies like Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, Circle, and the Ethereum Foundation, all of whom have managed to buy themselves more leeway.

The crypto companies and VCs have taken a page from the playbook of big tech and traditional finance, knowing that political contributions are the surest way to tilt the system in their favor. As these projects receive a pass, it is retail investors who pay the price when these house-of-cards schemes eventually crumble.

This newfound freedom for crypto has ushered in a modern-day “Wild West.” With lax oversight, non-Bitcoin crypto projects are free to grift without the constraints of consumer protections. Rigged token sales, celebrity endorsements, and thinly-veiled ponzi schemes are all allowed to proliferate under the guise of “innovation.” At first glance this might seem bullish for crypto, but let’s be clear: it’s a bonanza for scambling, not for actual innovation.

Bitcoin Stands Alone

Bitcoin, however, remains in a different category. It’s the only cryptocurrency that doesn’t need a lobbyist or a politician’s favor to survive and thrive. While scambling tokens maneuver to win the approval of regulators, Bitcoin operates on its own terms, outside the reach of centralized control. Bitcoin’s ethos is that it’s decentralized and permissionless; nobody controls it and it doesn’t need government regulation because its rules are both clear and inviolable. As regulators and politicians extend preferential treatment to the shiny new tokens paying their way into favor, they are inadvertently amplifying Bitcoin’s core value proposition: financial sovereignty and true decentralization. Bitcoin doesn’t need lobbyists because Bitcoin doesn’t need government to look the other way.

Despite the scandals and hype cycles that have come and gone in the broader crypto industry, Bitcoin stands apart. Unlike the TRUMP coins, Bitcoin has no marketing team, no PR machine, and no centralized authority hyping its value. It is held up by the community that runs its protocol and the decentralized network that emerges. This is why Bitcoin will nonetheless thrive in this era of scambling, despite Bitcoin being the only honest player at the table. As the market for scambling inevitably collapses under the weight of its own false promises, Bitcoin will remain, unshaken and resilient.

Fortunately, as the Age of Scambling proceeds, more people will see the value of Bitcoin’s slow-and-steady, deliberate design. Bitcoin was never intended to be a get-rich-quick scheme, and its value comes not from empty promises but from the integrity of its protocol and the community that upholds it. Every crypto token that crashes and every rug-pull scandal that unfolds serves as a reminder of Bitcoin’s resilience.

In the end, Bitcoin doesn’t need celebrity endorsements, marketing gimmicks, or political handshakes to survive. It is inherently different from crypto. It has withstood every market cycle, every regulatory threat, and every wave of speculative mania. While regulators continue to court crypto lobbyists and embrace this age of scambling, Bitcoin’s role becomes even more apparent: a reliable, unyielding store of value for those who recognize the difference between substance and spectacle. The Age of Scambling may have arrived, but it will be Bitcoin that endures.