Technology

On February 11, 2025, Representative Sean Casten, an Illinois Democrat who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, questioned crypto industry executives at a public hearing about the dangers of the president of the United States launching a memecoin. These crypto tokens are also known as “shitcoins” since they’re widely considered worthless, a tool for pump-and-dump schemes. Because the rules of congressional decorum had not accommodated themselves to the vulgar conventions of 21st-century financial technologies, Casten had to phrase his question carefully.

“It’s hard to talk about memecoins with the language that the industry uses to talk about them,” Casten said. “We’ll refer to them as ‘fecal coins’ for the purposes of this hearing. Is it safe to say from your smiles that you generally share the view of the industry that this is not something that has any innate value?”

“Yes,” an industry representative replied.

“The president of the United States issued something that has no innate value,” Casten said, before going on to talk about how retail traders may have lost billions speculating on the $TRUMP fecal coin.