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There are a lot of really awful people in America right now. And very near the top of the list is far-right podcaster Stew Peters. If there is any bigotry he does not embrace, we don't know what it is. On his "show," he regularly embraces homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, white supremacism, and all the other golden oldies. It will not surprise you to learn that he's also a conspiracy theorist, and in particular that he's all-in on the same conspiratorial notions as HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. It will further not surprise you to learn that Peters, like his fellow conspiratorial-bigot-a**hole Alex Jones, sells many products that will allow you to... unlock your inner potential, or something.
In nearly any other era of American history, Stew Peters would just be a garden-variety kook, and would have no place on a politics-themed site like this one. But the current era is not like any other era in American history. Not only is there a fair bit of overlap between "Peters' listeners" and "Donald Trump's base," but Peters is also closely aligned with several members of the Trump administration. Most obviously, FBI Director Kash Patel has been a guest on the show at least eight times. Patel claims he does not know who Peters is, but the footage is out there.
Anyhow, all three legs of the triad that forms the basis of Peters' existence—bigotry, conspiratorial thinking, and grift—are present in his latest venture. As you might expect from someone like Peters, he quite likes the idea of cryptocurrency. However, as you might also guess, he's skeptical of existing cryptocurrencies because he claims they are all controlled by Jewish bankers. And so, to "solve" this problem, and to line his pockets at the same time, he decided to introduce his own cryptocurrency, $JPROOF. Undoubtedly, readers can figure out what $JPROOF stands for without us having to tell you.
Crypto, mobile phone service, and two-bit "censorship-free" social media sites may be the three most popular grifts for 21st century right-wingers. Crypto's the easiest of the three, so of course that's the one a nitwit like Peters would choose. And happily, the whole thing was a disaster. The first problem is that the customer base for a cryptocurrency rooted in out-and-out-bigotry is going to be at least somewhat limited. The second problem is that Peters promised that most of the $JPROOF coins would be kept in "the vault," so as to preserve the overall value. However, it was quickly discovered that Peters was lying, and he was unloading the coins as quickly as he could, while he could. Hard to believe a swell guy like that isn't honest.
At its height, on May 4, $JPROOF was selling for 11 cents a coin. That's actually pretty good in crypto-world, where most meme coins struggle to reach a valuation of a penny, much less 11 pennies. And the opening price for $JPROOF was about 8 cents, so people who bought early and sold at the peak made a bit of money. However, the price has absolutely cratered since then. At the close of business yesterday, $JPROOF was down to $0.0001283 per coin. This means the total market capitalization of $JPROOF went from about $15 million at its peak to its current total of less than $14,000.
It is certainly possible that Peters made out here, just like Donald Trump made out well on his scammy meme coins. But even if that is true, it is necessarily the case that some sizable number of bigots took a haircut, as they backed their vile ideas with their actual money. For example, neo-Nazi online personality Lucas Gage lost his whole $10,000 investment. And Mo Khan, the Temple University student who made headlines after posting a sign that said "Fu** the Jews" at a Philadelphia bar, was given $100,000 in $JPROOF that is now worth... rather less than $100,000. And even if Peters did make some money here, he's absolutely outed himself as someone more than willing to dishonestly shear the sheep that follow him, so maybe his next grift will flop even worse than this one. Point is, there is plenty of schadenfreude to go around here. (Z)