👁️ Javier Milei, $Libra, and Hayden Davis: We Deserve A Better Class of Criminal

The Kelsier "Ventures" team are almost unbelievable morons.

Welcome to the weekly Dark Markets news roundup. This one is coming early because, well, just keep reading.

Correction: I initially misspelled the name of the organization here. It is “Kelsier Ventures.” Thanks to reader Bacool for catching that fairly serious error, my apologies - obviously I was writing in some haste. I always appreciate corrections or feedback of any sort.

I realized a few days ago that I’m not sure I’ve ever used this newsletter to shill my 2018 book Bitcoin is Magic. If you’re a fan of my writing, the contents are still very relevant, and it also contains some quite juicy anecdotes about figures who are less visible in crypto today, but still influential.

buy my book. buy my book. buy my book. buy my book.

I thought of the book today because it delves into some of the most basic fundamentals of cryptocurrency, and our main story is about the gang of absolute rubes and morons behind the $Libra memecoin fraud, dimwits who don’t understand what any of this is about - much to their detriment. Keep reading for a few other choice nuggets, including absolute *queen* Charlie Javice, who defrauded JPMorgan by putting fake names into spreadsheets. Allegedly.

You’re telling me you wouldn’t trust this man with your money?

Hayden Davis Might Literally Die From Stupidity

Hayden Davis at this writing has control of $110 million dollars that he effectively stole from bidders on the $Libra memecoin that he launched in a completely scuffed deal with Argentinian President Javier Milei, apparently premised on the false notion that the token would support small businesses in Argentina. Milei posted a promotion of the coin, then figured out what it was - a memecoin scam - and pulled the endorsement. Now Milei appears at risk of impeachment, and the fucking Argentinian stock market crashed.

Pretty much everyone seemingly lost their money except Hayden’s team at “Kelsier Ventures,” which I put in quotes because it is not a venture firm, but an organized crime operation. Kelsier was also involved in the Melania Trump memecoin, and engaged in insider trading of both tokens, which Davis just admitted publicly in an interview with fraud investigator Coffeezilla.

So yeah, if some furious Argentinian crime lord (or just some guy who lost $2.78 million) puts two in the back of Hayden Davis’ head in Minecraft, a worry he expresses in the interview, it will be because Hayden Davis is maybe one of the stupidest men to ever live (in Minecraft). He is uniquely vulnerable to getting-his-brains-blown-out syndrome because he has, despite the intelligence deficit that confronts him every morning in the mirror in the form of his miniscule skull and listless gaze , decided he should get into the experimental financial fraud game.

And the fact that Kelsier Ventures also includes his family members - father Tom Davis and brother Gideon Davis - means they’re all probably genetically impaired halfwits who are currently running around like the Three Stooges bumping into walls in a panic. (Or maybe, as has been pointed out to me, Hayden is mentally impaired by a ketamine habit, because the memecoin shithead crypto bros love that stupid pointless drug.)

I base my low-bottom assesment of Davis and family’s intellect on the interview with Coffee, which is ample evidence. Yes it’s true that near the end of the conversation he dismisses something as “a mute point,” but we’re talking about much, much deeper issues here - this beef-and-broccoli boy, who is somehow advising world leaders, has absolutely no understanding of finance in general, or of cryptocurrency specifically, and it is truly a wonder to behold.

In the space of an hour, he confesses to many crimes, but I’m just going to run down a few highlights below. He repeatedly, desperately asks for someone to tell him what to do. But what is truly fascinating about the interview isn’t the confessions, or the embarrassment: it’s that Hayden appears to not understand that memecoins are fundamentally fraudulent. I take him at his word, because again, he’s unbelievably stupid. He honestly wants Coffee to explain to him how to make memecoins sustainable, and repeatedly refers to memecoins as a possible way to kickstart “social finance.”

So he really doesn’t see any difference between $FARTCOIN2 or dogwifhat on the one hand, and Bitcoin and Ethereum on the other. Because those two are actual blockchains, already functioning “social finance,” built on distributed technology stacks that I’m assuming would take about a month to explain to Hayden very, very slowly while he works his way through numerous tanks of Galaxy Gas.

His stupidity is, to his credit, very very funny. One example is his righteous stance that memecoin platforms like Pump.fun are bad, not because they enable shitcoin frauds like his own, but because they earn trading fees even when someone like him steals everyone’s money.

“What should people do? How should people make money from these? Because there’s fees, and also there’s the platforms that make fuckloads of money, no matter if there’s a rugpull, or a project goes well or not. Which I completely disagree with. I completely disagree. Pump.fun’s full of shit, Meteora, Jupiter, all these guys, it doesn’t matter, they’re just making money on trading fees, and if people lose their shorts, they’re still cooking. Which I think is fucking bullshit … when people are screwing people, there should be some sort of refund policy.”

This is very, very, very funny. I’m just going to let it speak for itself.

Anyway, he goes on to describe memecoins as “a broken system” that he’s “trying to fix,” apparently by sniping his own launches (???), and also by telling other people about the launches so they can snipe them. “I can’t say that I [or other team members] haven’t told a singular soul” about launches, he tells Coffee. Which is a fucking admission to insider trading. It’s incredible.

But Hayden has a principled stance on this too - insider trading is how memecoins work, bro! “The idea of insiders, to me is bullshit, because any memecoin I’ve ever … been a part of, The people that benefit the most are the people who structure the deal. Similar to any other business in the world. People who are closest normally make the most money. There’s always an unfair advantage. There’s an unfair advantage if you’re a genius on-chain and know how to game the system on Meteora.”

So it’s okay - but it’s also a broken system? “What the fuck should you do? Nobody, the best people in crypto, don’t have an answer. They don’t. How do we make money cleanly? Is it even possible?” (Glad to know ‘the best people in crypto’ are on it, thumbs up).

At this point Coffeezilla, a true hero of magnanimity, tries to explain to Hayden the concept of a zero-sum game and the purely extractive nature of memecoins. “You can structure it a lot of different ways, but anything that is by definition value extracting of the world at large, is not a great thing.”

“But then every crypto project, whether it’s VC funded or a memecoin, is value extractive,” responds Hayden, and Coffee, who at this point I’m thinking may be literally the second coming of Jesus Christ, patiently tries to explain to this dimwit the concept of a utility token that serves as a medium of exchange for services - "something that does something … crypto, the idea is that there’s some kind of financial technology behind it.”

It’s like he’s trying to explain the concept of a circuitboard to a gorilla. “It’s still value extraction,” Hayden garbles, “It doesn’t matter if it has utility … Bitcoin is literally valuable because a shitload of people said it’s valuable, and because it quote-unquote isn’t controlled by anybody that we know of.”

So, he doesn’t know how Bitcoin works, at all.

I won’t belabor that particular point - basically, this guy has no knowledge of the field in which he has pitched himself as an expert to both Melania Trump and Javier Milei, which clearly says more about them and the people around them than it does about him. After all, he’s just some dumbass off the street.

Hayden also says that “every single person who launches these [memecoins], unless they’re just a nefarious fuck, they’re trying to figure out how to make these last.” Which, probably this is simply a lie and all of these people know they’re just scammers.

But I’m delighted by the idea that there are a bunch of pump.fun memecoin launchers out there, who can’t write a line of code, but are running through combinations of dumb names and animal tickers going “This, this is finally the Bitcoin killer. I’ve done it. I’ve saved global finance.”

Hayden’s wallets show he was “sniping” his own coin - that is, buying it at a low price because he was (of course) aware the exact second that he launched. He claims this was to defend the launch, to “avoid other snipers getting in.” He also says “I don’t conduct snipes. I’m not a dev … I don’t even know how to. I’ve never done a bot” Which is a crazy thing to say, because sniping is something a trader or market maker would do, not a “dev,” as in, a coder. But “dev” has also become shitcoin code for the deployer of a token on a platform like Pump.fun, so who the fuck knows.

But the upshot is, he again admits to insider trading, and he’s absolutely sure it’s not a big deal because “That is the game. The people who get mad are the people who aren’t insiders. That’s what happens. All the bitching on socials is people who don’t get into the deals. You’ll never hear them bitch if they’re in the deal.” At least he’s kind of honest!

There are some other really great admissions to insider trading and market manipulation, and he throws some other folks under the bus: “Every KOL [Key Opinion Leaders], every single one globally, that’s how their money gets made. They know about a deal, they agree to a deal, then they make money on a deal.”

“I don’t think [memecoins] should be treated like capital markets, because they’re not … I don’t treat it as a regular stock … I treat it like a casino because that’s what it is.”

Anyway, what’s my point here … mostly just to laugh at this rube? And also to laugh at most of the people dumb enough to follow him who got rekt. But when you have a president involved, you also maybe have regular people who get drawn in. For a long time there was a fairly decent technical barriers to normies getting raked over the coals, but way too many people know how to use crypto tools now, so maybe we’re all doomed.

Did we learn anything here? Actually maybe? Like I’m sure Hayden is a genuine scumbag, but he’s also genuinely stupid, and while that doesn’t absolve him of criminal liability - and oh my god he is going to PRISON prison - it is a useful insight to add to our understanding of scammers. A major portion of my SBF book argues that he was above all quite incredibly fucking dumb, Sam just had a few more layers to him than this guy. Most fraudsters, in fact, are idiots! It’s why they have to do crime instead of getting real jobs!

Maybe there’s a lesson in there, of some sort. Maybe.

News of the Week

A Donald Trump Executive Order reportedly halts FBI anti-fraud trainings for the elderly

Criminal Trial Starts for Frank Founder Charlie Javice

Javice, if you remember, is accused of paying a data scientist to manufacture accounts to show 4.25mn users when Frank’s actual figure was 90 per cent fewer. The trial is due to start on February 18.

“JPMorgan Chase’s alleged close relationship with prosecutors will be a key focus in the defence strategy,” writes the FT. An entire defense that focuses on procedural issues and alleged collusion is always a winner, 10/10 good luck to Charlie.

Craig Wright Going Truly Insane

I mean I’m probably exaggerating, because pretending to be Satoshi Nakamoto was always a real nutjob move, but having a court declare it’s illegal for him to keep lying, and apparently recently getting hit by a truck, have made his posts under the S. Tominaga screen name increasingly unhinged.

Particularly relevant was Wright’s recent declaration that “Rather than being public, open, and sharing everything, most of what I’m doing now will be something noone will discover. And when I say noone, I mean noone. Not until I decide it’s time.”

You know who else keeps their Very Important Research secret? Eleizer Yudkowsky and the Rationalists.