当前特朗普白宫战略家史蒂夫·班农和特朗普顾问鲍里斯·爱普施泰因控制了MAGA品牌的加密货币2021年12月，该项目似乎有望成功。
A白热化的密码市场为高回报创造了条件。在一个依赖促销和营销技巧的行业，特朗普的两位高调助手迅速利用他们的巨大扩音器吸引了大批买家。
几周内，该货币的价值飙升。班农和爱普施泰因，两位最初的建筑师唐纳德·特朗普的政治运作，在社交媒体和班农的热门播客上不懈地推广它，将其定位为对乔·拜登总统的拒绝，以及保守派的替代货币，将支持创造就业机会，并定期向慈善机构捐款。
硬币的名字本身试图利用政治分歧;这种货币被称为$FJB，它的名字来自于粗俗的语言"乔·拜登"
班农在2021年12月宣布收购$FJB业务后不久，在他的作战室播客上说:“我们现在说，‘去他的乔·拜登’。”这表明你完全独立...你将很快不再依赖他们的金融系统。"
但是现在，13个月过去了，加密货币已经陷入困境。$FJB，现在官方称其代表自由就业业务，已经损失了95%的价值，至少部分是由于整个行业的低迷。一些声称购买了这枚硬币的人涌向社交媒体，抱怨该基金的管理，指控硬币的领导层和代表做出了虚假承诺，包括指责他们没有兑现继续将硬币收入的一部分捐赠给受伤战士项目和其他慈善机构的承诺。
除了硬币的黯淡表现之外，自我认定的买家越来越担心，艾普斯泰恩和班农实际上已经跳槽了。
批评者说，$FJB代表了一系列命运多舛的努力中的最新一个，这些努力旨在利用MAGA的支持来获得财务回报，特别是班农的支持，他在9月份对与他无关的指控表示不服罪被骗的捐赠者承诺在美墨边境建一堵墙。
美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)对$FJB代表和追随者的每周会议和社交媒体活动进行了长达一个月的审查，并采访了前公司内部人士和自称的硬币持有者，详细描述了$FJB如何在市场趋势、内部功能失调和未兑现承诺的指控的重压下暴跌。
一位接近Bannon和Epshteyn的人士告诉ABC新闻，“Steve和Boris完全致力于$FJB社区，并与一个精通和专注的团队合作，以继续推进该项目的所有目标和目的。也有一个全面的努力正在进行中，以确定和补救任何和所有的问题所产生的行动，最初的创始人的硬币。$FJB社区代表并拥护透明、独立和美国的力量。史蒂夫和鲍里斯将永远为这些理想而奋斗。”
“很高兴成为慈善硬币的一部分”
Bannon和Epshteyn于2021年底从最初的主要开发商Grant Tragni手中收购了这个价值10亿美元的FJB项目。在宣传收购的声明中，班农和埃普施泰因强调，这将是“一个热爱美国、热爱自由、支持退伍军人的社区”，货币收入的一部分将捐给几家慈善机构。
在被班农和爱普施泰因收购之前，最初的$FJB开发者已经向非营利组织受伤勇士退伍军人服务组织捐赠了1万美元——特朗普的两个盟友表示，他们将扩大这一捐赠。
然而，在去年夏天开始的每周电话中，买家开始质疑班农和埃普希廷关于$FJB潜力的说法，包括他们向支持退伍军人和其他人的慈善机构捐款的承诺。
根据$FJB的网站和源代码，捐款将来自$FJB每次从该公司购买加密硬币收取的8%交易费的一部分。
美国广播公司新闻采访的专家说，虽然交易费在加密项目中很常见，但$FJB收取的8%的费用明显高于正常水平。
2021年12月，在班农的作战室播客中的一集上，爱普施泰因将受伤的勇士项目，通往塔楼的隧道，永远忠诚和爱国者自由项目列为捐赠目标。
但据受伤勇士项目的发言人表示，截至今年1月，自班农和艾普希廷于2021年12月接管以来，$FJB没有向该组织提供任何捐款。受伤的战士告诉美国广播公司新闻，他们在2021年11月只收到了一笔来自$FJB的捐款——在班农和艾普希廷参与之前。班农和爱普希廷没有回应美国广播公司新闻的置评请求。
在过去的几个月里，$FJB的管理人员和硬币的创造者Tragni还声称至少进行了两次慈善捐赠:向圣裘德儿童研究医院捐赠了500美元，向一个支持9/11急救人员的无名组织捐赠了数额不明的款项。但尽管买家提出了要求，但这些代表没有提供$FJB进行这些捐赠的证据，这引发了一些说自己购买了这种货币的在线用户的担忧。
2022年8月，一名声称购买了价值1.5万美元的FJB硬币的用户在Discord消息平台上写道:“我很高兴成为交易费帮助人们的慈善硬币的一部分。”。“(但)过去半年来，我们已经偏离了当初买入时的初衷。我仍然希望这个项目能帮助很多人，但我们一路上都遇到了过度承诺和拖延。”
“至少所有的几百万都捐给了慈善机构.....一名沮丧的用户本月在Discord网站上写道:“哦，等等，那没有发生。”。
莫莉·怀特(Molly White)是一名软件工程师，也是加密货币的直言不讳的批评者，另一名加密货币专家因专业问题要求不透露姓名，她分析了$FJB的数字代码，并表示，虽然他们发现了一个名为“受伤的战士捐赠地址”的账户，似乎从交易费用中留出了一部分资金，但从代码中并不清楚慈善账户中有多少资金实际上捐赠给了慈善组织。
专家说，这是因为这些账户中的大部分资金被转移到难以追踪的中介账户。
例如，怀特在审查了$FJB的交易后告诉美国广播公司新闻，似乎$FJB慈善账户的一些钱已经进入了一个中介账户，该账户将钱汇给了另一个账户，该账户对不知名的硬币进行高风险投资。
怀特表示，尽管区块链技术应该让加密货币交易对所有用户透明，但情况并非总是如此。
怀特说:“仅仅因为你能看到一个钱包，并不意味着你知道里面的钱发生了什么或者去了哪里。”“对于有足够动机的人来说，混淆区块链的资金流动是相当简单的。”
由于加密空间在很大程度上不受监管且匿名，除了少数像班农和埃普施泰因这样的高调人物，其他人对$FJB社区的其他人知之甚少，包括其买家、持有者，甚至开发者和工作人员。
$FJB的许多在线社区都是匿名运营的，即使是管理社交媒体账户、发布公告和主持每周电话会议的管理员，也只是用他们的不和谐用户名和电报用户名来标识自己，而不是全名。
资金缺失
2022年10月，$FJB的代表在一次每周电话会议上公开承认，与该硬币8%的交易费相关的账户中有一笔不明金额的资金“失踪”，这让一些明显的$FJB买家感到沮丧
尽管网上出现了强烈反对和大量关注，但代表们没有提供失踪资金的细节，称正在进行“内部调查”和“法律行动”。
2022年12月7日，一位名叫莎拉的管理员在Discord和Telegram信息平台上用用户名“sundevil28”表示，“我们并没有声称钱被偷了”。“我们说资金不见了。他们没有达到预期的目的，这就是我们要说的。”
后来，为了应对在线用户日益增长的挫折感，萨拉在2022年12月中旬的一次每周电话会议上说，“鲍里斯[艾普斯泰因]正在努力收回我们的资金。”
尽管美国广播公司新闻部多次要求，莎拉没有发表任何评论。
怀特告诉美国广播公司新闻，缺少资金可能是一个问题项目的迹象。
“从那以后就有点走下坡路了”
根据LinkedIn的一篇帖子和网上分享的其他账户，FJB加密货币的起源可以追溯到2021年10月，当时这种硬币是由最近从伦斯勒理工学院毕业的Tragni和另外两人推出的。
根据Tragni自己在网上分享的账户，该项目很快“在头40天内获得了8000多名持有人，向慈善机构捐赠了5万美元，市值达到9000万美元”。
这枚硬币的快速成功和政治信息吸引了班农和埃普施泰因的注意，他们在2021年12月之前从特拉格尼和其他创始人手中收购了这种加密货币。
特朗普的两名助手对他们与$FJB的确切关系一直很谨慎。他们没有公开声称拥有该公司，而是将此举描述为一种“战略合作伙伴关系”，即他们对该项目拥有“重大控制权”，但没有提供具体细节。
但$FJB官方网站上的描述、班农和埃普施泰因在社交媒体上的帖子、对$FJB官方不和的评论以及来自支持者和自称的买家的电报信息表明，这两位MAGA名人对这枚硬币拥有巨大的控制权。
美国广播公司新闻频道还获得了一份2021年12月的合同副本，该合同授予艾普斯泰恩和班农“对硬币的控制、管理和治理”。据两名没有参与转移的加密货币律师称，该文件显示出转移“完全合法”的明确意图...负责管理和治理$FJB的LLC对Bannon和Epshteyn的法律实体的“所有权”。
旧金山Gamma Law的技术和媒体律师大卫·b·霍普(David B. Hoppe)告诉美国广播公司新闻部(ABC News)，“班农和艾普希恩同意控制$FJB，作为交易的对价。
霍普说:“在这一点上，协议是明确而具体的:班农和埃普希廷有义务控制营销和推广，更新智能合同代码，指导$FJB的‘哲学’和‘管理硬币所需的其他职责’。”。
一位不愿透露身份的硬币开发者告诉美国广播公司新闻，在辞去$FJB负责人职务后，特拉尼继续参与该项目，管理该货币的各种账户，并帮助社区外联。
这枚硬币的创始人Tragni没有回应ABC新闻的置评请求。
据$FJB的官方网站称，不久后，班农和爱普施泰因吸引了特朗普的其他大牌盟友来帮助推广该项目，包括极右翼评论员杰克·波索比耶克(Jack Posobiec)和前纽约市警察局长伯纳德·克里克(Bernard Kerik)。
MAGA的支持者蜂拥购买这种货币，硬币的价值很快翻了两番。
像所有加密货币一样，$FJB是一种不受监管的数字货币，用户通过一个被称为区块链的分散式公共账本将其存储在一个在线钱包中。因为任何加密货币的价值都来源于需求量，所以加密货币的创造者经常利用名人来推广他们的产品——就像汤姆·布拉迪、斯蒂芬·库里和拉里·戴维一样霍克·FTX，现已停业的加密货币交易所，由陷入困境的前首席执行官萨姆·班克曼-弗里德创立。
但是成功可能是短暂的。
“他们推出，他们得到了一些炒作，他们的价格有点飙升，”怀特说。"然后从那里开始就有点走下坡路了."
对于$FJB来说，在班农和爱普施泰因最初宣布后不久，硬币的价值开始缓慢下降。
在接下来的几个月里，像波索比耶克和克里克这样的关键人物从$FJB的网站上被删除了，班农和埃普斯泰恩对该项目的公开宣传也减少了，留下了该项目的每周状态电话，主要是给管理员，他们只知道他们的不和和电报用户名，他们说他们经常与这两位MAGA的影响者联系。
“留给挣扎”
随着美元FJB的价值进入自由落体状态，网上出现了对该货币管理的质疑，班农和爱普希廷开始缩减他们在网上对该硬币的无情推广，用户表示，在更广泛的背景下，这进一步降低了它的价值市场放缓到2022年和2023年初，这影响了以太坊和比特币等其他加密货币。
为了提振和恢复兴趣，$ term在2022年8月初宣布，它正在为加密货币开发一款应用程序，以支持“信用卡、银行，所有一切”该计划短暂推高了硬币的价值，但兴奋并没有持续多久，硬币的价值又开始下滑——据自称的买家说，备受期待的应用程序仍然难以有效运行。
2022年9月，在自我确认的买家数周请求班农在他的作战室播客上推广硬币后，班农和埃普希廷终于出现在$FJB的每周状态电话中，以安抚买家，并对硬币的未来做出更多承诺。
Epshteyn吹嘘说，硬币正在“扩展到欧洲”，班农向买家保证，“这将是一个MAGA硬币。”
班农在2022年9月17日的一次电话中说:“我可以全天候处理这件事。”。“鲍里斯会告诉你，我一直在研究这个。我为自己是其中的一员而自豪，为自己是团队的一员而自豪。”
2022年8月4日，美国前总统唐纳德·特朗普的前顾问史蒂夫·班农在CPAC举行的保守政治行动会议期间接受采访。
布兰登·贝尔/盖蒂图片社，档案
在那之后，似乎班农和爱普施泰因在五个多月的时间里对$FJB保持沉默，无视支持者和硬币持有者要求他们公开支持该项目并解决有关硬币的各种问题的请求。在那几个月里，Discord和Telegram上只有$FJB的代表和$FJB频道的主持人与追随者和买家沟通，告诉他们班农和艾普希廷忙于2022年的中期选举，然后承诺艾普希廷会加入每周的电话会议，然后他在最后一刻取消了会议。
一名用户2022年12月在$FJB的Discord chat上写道:“我确实同意，(班农和爱普施泰因)在11个月前就在这个项目上签名是非常愚蠢的，人们投入了数千美元，却感到自己在挣扎。”。
$FJB的代表最近在每周的电话中告诉买家，该项目负债累累，正在向开发商偿还款项，以支付其他费用，因此暂停了几个项目，包括推出备受期待的应用程序。
2022年12月，一名声称购买了$FJB的用户在Discord上写道:“我失去了16，000美元中的14美元。”。"在这件事解决之前，我看不出你能有什么进展。"
跳槽?
经过几个月的沉默，本月，当莎拉在2月13日发布了一则关于不和的公告，称两人将退出该项目时，班农和爱普施泰因似乎给了$FJB的持有者一个致命的打击。
“因此，爱普施泰因和班农决定转移和分配$FJB，让我们去布兰登硬币的权利和义务，”她写道，并补充说，她已经卖掉了自己的一些$FJB硬币，以便“随时有一些资金可用。”
这枚硬币的价值再次暴跌，买家在社交媒体上表达了他们的不满，一些人感叹被班农和埃普斯泰恩“敲竹杠”的感觉。
“我的15K值80美元，所以这是一个14920美元的教训，”一位据称的硬币持有者在2月13日宣布后不久在Discord上写道。
在莎拉发布了关于班农和埃普什蒂恩与公司分道扬镳的不和谐言论后不久，她就撤下了帖子。当晚，爱普施泰因在社交媒体上重申了两人对这枚硬币的支持。
然后，在最初宣布的两天后——在美国广播公司新闻联系班农和埃普希廷，询问他们与$FJB的关系后——班农在他的作战室播客上重申了他对该项目的支持。
班农在2月15日说:“我不仅是那个项目和社区的巨大支持者，我的钱包——鲍里斯和我的钱包——是公开的。”“我不仅从未卖过硬币，我只买过硬币，而且那个钱包是公开的。各位，检查一下。我们是$FJB项目和社区的大力支持者。”一位接近爱普施泰因的人士告诉ABC新闻，爱普施泰因也从未出售过一枚FJB硬币。
随后，在2月17日，莎拉也重申，她，班农和埃普施泰因“仍然致力于硬币和组织，并期待未来。”
加密货币评论家怀特表示，加密货币买家“抱着比外部观察者看起来合理的时间更长的希望”并不少见，因为他们想让其他人相信代币有价值。
“把钱投到这些东西上的人很常见，他们有时会看到绝对不当行为的证据...怀特说:“在相当长的一段时间里，他们会故意忽视这一点，只是因为他们在项目上进行了财务投资，项目进展顺利。”。
Internal chaos plagues Bannon-fronted $FJB cryptocurrency, critics say
When former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon and Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn took control of a MAGA-brandedcryptocurrencyin December 2021, the venture seemed poised for success.
Awhite-hot crypto markethad set the stage for high returns. And in an industry that relies on promotion and marketing savvy, the two high-profile Trump associates quickly leveraged their enormous megaphones to attract throngs of buyers.
Within weeks, the currency's value soared. Bannon and Epshteyn, two original architects ofDonald Trump'spolitical operation, promoted it relentlessly on social media and on Bannon's hit podcast, positioning it as a rejection of President Joe Biden and an alternative currency for conservatives that would support job creation and regularly donate to charities.
The name of the coin itself sought to capitalize on political divisions; dubbed $FJB, the currency takes its name from the shorthand version of thevulgar MAGA expression"F--- Joe Biden."
"We are now saying, 'Screw Joe Biden," Bannon said on his War Room podcast shortly after announcing his acquisition of the $FJB operation in December 2021. "It shows your total and complete independence ... you're going to very quickly have non-reliance on their financial system."
But now, thirteen months on, the cryptocurrency has fallen on hard times. $FJB, now officially said to stand for Freedom Jobs Business, has lost 95% of its value, at least in part due to an industry-wide downturn. And some of those who say they bought the coin are flocking to social media with complaints about the fund's management and allegations that the coin's leadership and representatives have made false promises -- including accusations that they've failed in their commitment to continue to donate portions of the coin's proceeds to the Wounded Warriors Project and other charities.
Compounding the coin's lackluster performance is a growing concern among self-identified buyers that Epshteyn and Bannon have, in effect, jumped ship.
Critics say $FJB represents the latest in a string of ill-fated efforts to leverage MAGA support for financial returns -- particularly on the part of Bannon, who in September pleaded not guilty to unrelated charges that hedefrauded donorswith the promise of building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
A monthslong review by ABC News of $FJB representatives' and followers' weekly meetings and social media activity, as well as interviews with former company insiders and self-identified coin holders, details how $FJB plummeted under the weight of market trends, internal dysfunction, and allegations of unfulfilled promises.
A person close to Bannon and Epshteyn told ABC News, "Steve and Boris are fully committed to the $FJB community, and are working with a proficient and dedicated team in order to continue moving forward with all of the goals and objectives of the project. There is also a full effort under way to determine and remedy any and all issues stemming from actions of the original founders of the coin. The $FJB community stands for and champions transparency, independence, and American strength. Steve and Boris will always fight for those ideals."
'Excited to be a part of a charity coin'
The $FJB project was acquired in late 2021 by Bannon and Epshteyn from original lead developer Grant Tragni. In their announcement touting the acquisition, Bannon and Epshteyn emphasized that it would be "a community of those who love America, who love freedom, and who support our veterans," and that part of the currency's proceeds would go to several charities.
Prior to its acquisition by Bannon and Epshteyn, the original $FJB developers had already made a $10,000 donation to the nonprofit Wounded Warriors veterans' service organization -- and the two Trump allies said they would expand on that.
During weekly calls beginning last summer, however, buyers began questioning the claims Bannon and Epshteyn had made about the potential of $FJB, including their commitment to make donations to charities supporting veterans and others.
According to $FJB's website and source code, the donations would come from a part of the 8% transaction fee that $FJB charges every time a person purchases the crypto coin from the company.
Experts ABC News spoke with said that while transaction fees are common in crypto projects, the 8% fee that $FJB is charging is significantly higher than normal.
Epshteyn listed the Wounded Warriors Project, Tunnels To Towers, Semper Fi and Patriot Freedom Project as donation targets on an episode of Bannon's War Room podcast in December 2021.
But according to a spokesperson of the Wounded Warriors Project, as of January this year, no donations have been made by $FJB to the organization since Bannon and Epshteyn took over in December 2021. Wounded Warriors told ABC News that they had only received the one donation from $FJB in November 2021 -- prior to Bannon and Epshteyn's involvement. Bannon and Epshteyn did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
Over the last few months, $FJB administrators and Tragni, the coin's creator, also claimed to have made at least two charitable donations: a $500 donation to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and an unknown amount to an unnamed organization supporting 9/11 first responders. But the representatives haven't provided proof of those donations made by $FJB despite buyers' requests, prompting concerns among some online users who say they purchased the currency.
"I was excited to be a part of a charity coin where transaction fees helped people," a user who claimed to have purchased $15,000 worth of $FJB coins wrote in August 2022 on the Discord messaging platform. "[But] for the past half a year, we have moved away from the original ideas of the coin we bought into. I'm still hopeful this project will help many people, but we have been met with overpromises and delays the WHOLE WAY."
"At least all the millions made to charity donations.....oh wait that didn't happen," one frustrated user wrote on Discord this month.
Molly White, a software engineer and outspoken critic of cryptocurrencies, and another cryptocurrency expert who asked not to be identified citing professional concerns, analyzed $FJB's digital code and said that while they found an account called "Wounded Warriors Donation address" that appears to set aside a portion of funds from the transaction fees, it wasn't clear from the code how much of the funds from the charitable account have actually been donated to charitable organizations.
That's because much of the funds in those accounts get transferred to intermediary accounts that are difficult to follow, the experts said.
For example, it appears that some of $FJB's charitable account money has made its way to an intermediary account that sends money to another account that makes high-risk investments in obscure coins, White told ABC News after reviewing $FJB's transactions.
White said that although blockchain technology is supposed to make cryptocurrency transactions transparent to all users, that's not always the case.
"Just because you can see a wallet doesn't mean you know what's happening to the money that's in it or where it's going," White said. "It's fairly straightforward for sufficiently motivated people to obfuscate the movement of money on the blockchain."
And because of the largely unregulated and anonymous nature of the crypto space, except for a handful of high-profile figures like Bannon and Epshteyn, not much else is known about the rest of the $FJB community, including its buyers, holders, and even developers and staff members.
Much of the $FJB's online community operates in anonymity, with even administrators who manage social media accounts, post announcements and host weekly calls only identifying themselves with their Discord and Telegram usernames instead of their full names.
Missing funds
In October 2022, lingering frustration among some apparent $FJB buyers boiled over when representatives of $FJB publicly acknowledged during one of their weekly calls that an unknown amount of money from accounts linked to the coin's 8% transaction fee had gone "missing."
Despite the backlash and a deluge of concern online, representatives have not provided details about the missing funds, citing an ongoing "internal investigation" and "legal action."
"We are not claiming the money has been stolen," an administrator known as Sarah who goes by the username "sundevil28" on the Discord and Telegram messaging platforms said during a weekly call on Dec. 7, 2022. "We're saying the funds are missing. They did not go to the purpose they were intended for, and that's as far as we'll speak on."
Later, in response to growing frustration among online users, Sarah said during a weekly call in mid-December 2022, that "Boris [Epshteyn] is working on recovering our funds."
Sarah did not offer any comment despite multiple requests from ABC News.
White told ABC News that missing funds can be a sign of a troubled project.
'It's just sort of downhill from there'
The genesis of the $FJB cryptocurrency dates back to October 2021, when the coin was launched by Tragni, then a recent Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute graduate, and two others, according to a LinkedIn post and other accounts shared online.
The project quickly "gained over 8,000 holders, donated $50,000 to charity, and had a market cap of $90 million, all within the first 40 days," according to Tragni's own account shared online.
The coin's quick success and political messaging attracted the attention of Bannon and Epshteyn, who moved to acquire the cryptocurrency from Tragni and the other founders by December 2021.
The two Trump associates have been circumspect about their exact involvement with $FJB. They have refrained from publicly claiming to own the company and have instead framed their move as a "strategic partnership" in which they have "significant control" over the project, without offering specifics.
But descriptions on the official $FJB website, social media posts by Bannon and Epshteyn, and a review of $FJB's official Discord and Telegram messages from supporters and self-identified buyers suggest that the two MAGA celebrities have enormous control over the coin.
ABC News also obtained a copy of a contract from December 2021 that grants Epshteyn and Bannon "control, administration, and governance of the coin." According to two cryptocurrency lawyers who were not involved in the transfer, the document shows a clear intent of transferring "full legal ... ownership" of the LLC responsible for administration and governance of $FJB to Bannon and Epshteyn's legal entities.
"Bannon and Epshteyn agreed to take control of $FJB as their consideration for the deal," David B. Hoppe, a technology and media lawyer with Gamma Law in San Francisco, told ABC News.
"On this one point, the agreement is clear and specific: Bannon and Epshteyn were obligated to assume control of marketing and promotion, updates to the smart contract code, guidance of the 'philosophy' of $FJB and 'other duties required to administer the coin,'" Hoppe said.
After stepping down as the head of $FJB, Tragni stayed involved with the project to manage the currency's various accounts and help with community outreach, a source who was one of the developers of the coin but who did not want to be identified, told ABC News.
Tragni, the coin's founder, did not respond to ABC News' requests for comment.
Before long, Bannon and Epshteyn attracted other big-name Trump allies to help promote the project, including far-right commentator Jack Posobiec and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, according to $FJB's official website.
MAGA supporters flocked to purchase the currency, and the coin's value quickly quadrupled.
Like all cryptocurrencies, $FJB is non-regulated digital currency that users store in an online wallet through a decentralized public ledger known as a blockchain. Because the value of any cryptocurrency is derived from the amount of demand, crypto creators often use celebrities to promote their product -- in the same way that Tom Brady, Stephen Curry and Larry Davidhawked FTX, the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange founded by embattled former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
But success can be short-lived.
"They launch, they get some amount of hype, and they sort of spike in price," White said. "And then it's just sort of downhill from there."
For $FJB, the coin's value began a slow decline not long after Bannon and Epshteyn's initial announcement.
Key figures like Posobiec and Kerik were removed from $FJB's website in the months that followed, and Bannon and Epshteyn's public promotion of the project waned, leaving the project's weekly status calls mostly to administrators, identified only with their Discord and Telegram usernames, who said they were in regular contact with the two MAGA influencers.
'Left to flounder'
As the value of $FJB entered freefall and questions arose online about the currency's management, Bannon and Epshteyn began paring back their relentless promotion of the coin online, which users said further degraded its value against the backdrop of a broadermarket slowdownthrough 2022 and early 2023 that impacted other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin.
To boost and renew interest, $FJB announced in early August 2022 that it was building an app for the cryptocurrency to support a "credit card, banks, all of it across the board." The plan briefly drove up the coin's value, but the excitement didn't last and the coin's value began to slide again -- with the much-anticipated app still struggling to function effectively, according to self-identified buyers.
In September 2022, after weeks of pleas from self-identified buyers for Bannon to promote the coin on his War Room podcast, Bannon and Epshteyn finally appeared on $FJB's weekly status call to reassure buyers and make additional pledges about the future of the coin.
Epshteyn boasted that the coin is "expanding to Europe" and Bannon reassured buyers that "it's going to be a MAGA coin."
"I'm available 24/7 on this," Bannon said on a call on Sept. 17, 2022. "Boris will tell you, I'm working on this all the time. I'm proud to be part of this, proud to be part of the team."
After that, it appears that Bannon and Epshteyn went silent about $FJB for more than five months, ignoring pleas from supporters and coin holders asking them to publicly endorse the project and to address various questions being raised about the coin. During those months, only $FJB representatives and $FJB channel moderators on Discord and Telegram were communicating with followers and buyers, telling them that Bannon and Epshteyn were occupied with the 2022 midterms then promising that Epshteyn would join the weekly call before he ended up canceling at the last minute.
"I do agree that it is very obtuse of [Bannon and Epshteyn] to put their names to this project 11 months ago and people put in thousands only to feel left to flounder," one user wrote on $FJB's Discord chat in December 2022.
$FJB representatives recently told buyers during weekly calls that the project is in debt and is making back-payments to its developer and to cover other overhead -- leaving several projects on hold, including the launch of its much-anticipated app.
"I lost 14 of my 16 grand," a user who claimed to have purchased $FJB wrote on Discord in December 2022. "I don't see how you can go forward before this is ironed out."
Jumping ship?
After months of silence, Bannon and Epshteyn delivered what appeared to be a death blow to $FJB holders this month when Sarah posted an announcement on Discord on Feb. 13 that the duo was walking away from the project.
"Epshteyn and Bannon have accordingly decided to transfer and assign the rights and obligations of $FJB, Let's Go Brandon Coin," she wrote, adding that she had sold some of her own $FJB coins in order to "have some funds readily available."
The coin again plummeted in value and buyers took to social media to air their grievances, with some lamenting the feeling of being "ripped off" by Bannon and Epshteyn.
"My 15K worth $80 so it was a $14,920 lesson learned," one alleged coin holder wrote on Discord on Feb. 13, shortly after the announcement.
Shortly after Sarah posted on Discord about Bannon and Epshteyn parting with the company, she took down the post. Epshteyn took to social media that evening, reaffirming the duo's support for the coin.
Then, two days after the initial announcement -- and after ABC News reached out to Bannon and Epshteyn about their involvement with $FJB -- Bannon reiterated his support for the project on his War Room podcast.
"Not only am I a huge supporter of that project and the community, my wallet -- Boris and my wallet -- is public," Bannon said on Feb. 15. "I've not only never sold a coin, I've only bought coins, and that wallet is public. Everybody, check it. We are huge supporters of the $FJB project and the community." A person close to Epshteyn told ABC News that Epshteyn has also never sold an $FJB coin.
Subsequently, on Feb. 17, Sarah also reiterated that she, Bannon and Epshteyn "remained committed to the coin and organization, and look forward to the future."
White, the cryptocurrency critic, said it's not uncommon for cryptocurrency buyers to "hold out hope much longer than seems reasonable to the outside observer," because they want to convince other people that the token has value.
"It's pretty common to see people who put money into these things, who sometimes see evidence of absolute misbehavior ... sort of willfully ignore it for a really long time just because they are financially invested in the project going well," White said.
