CZ, Trump and the New Era of Open Corruption
The president just pardoned a convicted crypto billionaire. The story isn’t the crime. It’s how normal it feels.
In his fantastic new book The Hour of the Predator, Giuliano da Empoli profiles the Borgias: the Renaissance family that bought the papacy, poisoned rivals and turned corruption into an art.
He argues that their genius wasn’t the crimes themselves, but how the public they were about it. In those days, they flaunted their power and people adjusted.
500 years later, the same thing is happening again.
Donald Trump pardoned Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the crypto billionaire who admitted his company let terrorists, cartels and child abusers move money.
The news came and went. A few tweets, gasps and then it died out.
This is how corruption works these days. Not in the backrooms like it used to, but in broad daylight. It’s not whispered, it’s streamed.
Donald Trump once called crypto a scam. Then 2024 came. He needed cash… and a way to hide where it was coming from.
He didn’t hide the deals. Don Jr. and Eric’s crypto startup, World Liberty Financial, had already signed a $2B partnership with CZ and Binance.
The Trumps earn millions off the stablecoin at the center of it. It’s the same coin used in the investment that preceded CZ’s pardon. It’s not even subtle. The President of the United States personally benefited from a man he then declared innocent.
Once, this would’ve ended presidencies. Now it’s expected.
Our system didn’t collapse, it adapted.
The culture and media is fueled by engagement. The platforms are driven by outrage. The politicians run on the platforms. As long as this flywheel keeps spinning, everyone profits.
Trump didn’t invent this world. He mastered it.
But what does it say about us that he does this in plain sight… and it still works? Trump once bragged he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. He was right.
Corruption used to require creativity and effort. The crooks needed shell companies, burner phones and bagmen. Now it’s automated. All you need is a crypto wallet. A system built to make money untraceable and guilt optional.
That’s the part that should scare us.
Trump and CZ aren’t outsmarting the system, they’re testing it. We’re going to find out in real-time whether there’s a limit.
A four-billion-dollar laundering case wiped away by a business partner in the Oval Office. And it lands like a press release.
History has a way of catching up.
Every time power grows too dense, the air gets thin. People start to notice. They don’t need to agree on politics to feel when something’s off.
Standard Oil. Teapot Dome. And countless others. Each generation thinks the corruption of its moment is too sophisticated to fail. It never is.
What we’re seeing now: a president monetizing power while the platforms that broadcast him rake in engagement, is the modern version of the same cycle.
Big Tech didn’t invent corruption. It just scaled it. The attention economy didn’t just make us distracted. It made us complicit.
But that awareness always turns. Eventually, people pull their attention, their money and their trust somewhere else. That’s how every empire of power begins to crack — from Rockefeller to the Sacklers.
We’re living through one of the most corrupt eras in modern times… not because it hides, but because it doesn’t have to.
The Borgias ruled through gravitas. Today’s elites rule through access. The mediums changed: fresco to feed, gold to crypto. But the instinct’s the same.
Different century, same playbook.
Great stuff as usual 👏
👏🙏💯excellent writing and excellent article.