Steve Bannon’s MAGA Crypto $FJB Coin Has Investors Floundering – Rolling Stone
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The MAGA cryptocurrency $FJB, (official Freedom Jobs Business, unofficial shorthand for “Fuck Joe Biden”) has dropped 95 percent in value in the past 13 months despite a relentless push by owners Steve Bannon and Boris Epshteyn to keep it afloat, according to an ABC News investigation. The devalued digital currency has also become a hotbed of complaints from investors alleging mismanagement and broken promises by Bannon and Epshteyn.
According to a December 2021 contract obtained by ABC News, Bannon and Epshteyn were given “control, administration and management of the coin,” which reportedly reached a market value of $90 million before being acquired. Despite an initial spike after Trump allies took over the coin, the steady decline and lack of transparency has raised concerns that Bannon and Epshteyn have taken the money and run. A Discord admin announced to investors that the pair announced to investors earlier this month that they would transfer the rights to $FJB.
According to the report, $FJB promised significant returns to investors, and a commitment to send a portion of transaction fees to veterans groups and patriotic causes. Charities cited by Bannon in his promotion of the coin, including the Wounded Warrior Project, claim they have not received any monetary donations from $FJB, according to ABC News.
Claims that a significant portion of funds intended for charity have disappeared have raised concerns that investors in $FJB have fallen victim to a scam. An administrator for the company sent messages to users on the $FJB Discord server, telling them that while the funds were not “stolen,” they “did not go to their intended purpose, and that’s as far as we’re going to talk,” according to ABC News. The same administrator later claimed that Epshteyn was “working to get our money back.”
This wouldn’t be the first time Bannon let down hopeful investors. Trump pardoned his former adviser before leaving office after Bannon was charged with fraud and money laundering related to his “We Build The Wall” campaign. Bannon is said to have received more than $1 million in funds intended for the construction of a border wall between Mexico and the United States. Earlier this month, a law firm representing Bannon sued him for nearly half a million dollars worth of unpaid legal bills, some related to the border wall lawsuit.
The collapse of the $FJB, caused in part by the general downturn in cryptocurrency markets in 2022, was met with a wall of silence from Bannon and Epshteyn, despite pleas from investors for the pair to publicly promote and revive interest in the coin. “It’s very blunt [them] to put their names on this project 11 months ago and people put in thousands only to feel left to stumble, one Discord user wrote. Another stated that they had lost more than $14,000 on the project.
