Over the Thanksgiving holiday, there was a bit of a Christmas miracle for the Trump family: a faltering crypto coin suddenly got a windfall investment from a beleaguered (yet incredibly visible) figure, Justin Sun. Bloomberg’s Zeke Faux takes us inside the strange deal. Plus: How US fertility clinics helped a disgraced billionaire deceive women, and what President Joe Biden’s goals are in Africa. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up.

During his presidential campaign, amid an unprecedented flurry of shilling that saw him hawking sneakers, Bibles and digital trading cards, President-elect Donald Trump also started pitching something that may prove consequential: his own cryptocurrency.

Trump, who called Bitcoin a “scam” as recently as 2021, started promoting a project called World Liberty Financial this summer. It was a business venture founded by two online hustlers with less than impressive résumés; Trump’s sons said it would “make finance great again.”

World Liberty, which seems to be yet another platform for borrowing and lending crypto, has yet to launch. The Trumps, however, have been pitching its proprietary token. As an investment, it’s unappealing: It promises no share of revenue, and it can’t be sold, unless the rules are changed. But it’s an effective way of sending money to the Trumps: 75% of the proceeds, after a minimum is reached, flow straight to them as a fee, rather than funding development.

Hats for sale at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville in July. Photographer: Brett Carlsen/Bloomberg

This means anyone who wants to curry favor with the president-elect can simply buy some World Liberty coins. It’s more direct than renting a room at a Trump hotel or buying a painting from Hunter Biden. On Nov. 25, Justin Sun, a flashy China-born crypto founder, announced a $30 million purchase. That pushed the project over the minimum, and the Trumps now stand to collect at least $15 million, based on terms detailed in World Liberty’s “gold paper.”

Sun, who made headlines recently by paying $6.2 million at Sotheby’s for a banana duct-taped to a wall, said that he didn’t expect any favors from Trump in exchange for his investment. But he’s fighting a 2023 lawsuit from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which alleges he defrauded investors by manipulating the price of his Tron cryptocurrency with fake trades. He has denied the charges. He also made sure the world knew about his investment in World Liberty, a purchase he could’ve made anonymously, by announcing it on X.

“World Liberty Financial can be a beacon to move forward the whole blockchain industry in the US,” Sun said in an interview from Hong Kong, where he says he spends most of his time. “Because of the SEC’s approach of regulation by enforcement, crypto in the US has been at a disadvantage.”

The SEC’s wave of enforcement actions came after a crypto crash that revealed an impressive array of scams, Ponzi schemes, NFT grifts and false Web3 promises. But Sun is right: The US government’s approach is likely to change. According to people familiar with the matter, Paul Atkins, a veteran financial regulator and digital asset proponent, is a top candidate to replace SEC Chair Gary Gensler, the bête noire of crypto bros.

After crypto companies spent $135 million in the 2024 election cycle, more than any other industry, it appears likely that Congress will adopt a friendlier posture as well. That’ll be good for Trump’s crypto. And for anyone who wants some made-up coins you can’t sell, there are still 16.4 billion available for 1.5 cents each. Sun likely won’t be the last person with business before the US government to buy them.

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Lindberg in Tampa this spring. Photographer: Rose Marie Cromwell for Bloomberg Businessweek

As Anya walked into the fertility clinic for an appointment to have her eggs retrieved, she was already starting to panic. The modern miracle of in vitro fertilization has scary moments for all women, but she had extra reason to be nervous.

A native of Kazakhstan, Anya was working in the US as a model and actress. (The name is a pseudonym.) Her billionaire boyfriend had swept her off her feet, promising her a family and a loving future in the States. The only catch, he told her, was that he wanted kids yesterday, so she’d need to begin the IVF process as soon as possible. Then, if fertilization was successful, a surrogate would carry the embryo to term. If Anya didn’t start IVF, he’d dump her and move on.

Her boyfriend attached several other conditions, too. He directed her to a clinic in Chicago and said to pose as an acquaintance of his, tell them he was paying her the standard-ish $10,000 for her donation and sign forms waiving her rights to the eggs, including parental rights if any of them became children. He said he’d consider her the kid or kids’ mother, though, and would set her up with $1.5 million. Anya followed through with the lies and the forms. In preparation for the retrieval, she injected herself with hormones for weeks to kick her ovaries into overdrive. She endured the mood swings, the bloating, the painful cramps. But as she sat half-naked on the table with a sheet of doctor’s-office paper draped over her lower half, her boyfriend had just about all the power. If she ever fell out with him, or he found someone else, or he just changed his mind, she’d be screwed.

That’s just the start of Jackie Davalos and Sophie Alexander’s story about Greg Lindberg, a disgraced insurance tycoon who built a network of egg donors and surrogates, several of whom say they were conned. Keep reading: How a Billionaire’s ‘Baby Project’ Ensnared Dozens of Women

A train on the Lobito line. Photographer: Lobito Atlantic Railway

Twice a week, a cargo train groaning under hundreds of tons of copper concentrate pulls into the Angolan port of Lobito from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The locomotive is made by Pittsburgh-based Wabtec Corp. but many of the wagons come from China, and just outside town the train passes signage promoting a Chinese construction company. That speaks to the train line’s messy pedigree: Built by Scottish engineer Robert Williams in the early 20th century and refurbished by a Chinese company about a decade ago, the line is now run by a group led by commodities trader Trafigura.

The train, which runs from the Atlantic coast deep into Congo, is of particular interest to a passenger arriving 300 miles to the north, at the Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport in Luanda, Angola’s capital. On what will likely be his last overseas trip as president, Joe Biden is scheduled to step off Air Force One into the heat of the southern summer this afternoon, and the train line will top his agenda.

Biden, making the first visit to Africa by a sitting US president in almost a decade, sees the journey as a way to counter Chinese influence in the region and secure access to minerals critical to weaning the global economy off carbon-based fuels. Key to that effort is the 1,100-mile Lobito railway, which once carried uranium from Congo for the Manhattan Project. It’s getting an $866 million upgrade aimed at easing shipments of minerals such as copper and cobalt from Zambia and Congo to US ports.

Matthew Hill writes more about the US effort: The Billion-Dollar Railways Driving Biden’s Last Overseas Trip

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