You Can't Tariff JPEGs: Crypto Bros Celebrate as Digital Assets Evade Trump's Border Tax

In what experts are calling "probably the most economically illiterate policy since someone tried to pay their taxes in Dogecoin," President Trump has announced sweeping tariffs on imports from literally every country on Earth—including an uninhabited Antarctic island populated exclusively by penguins, who are reportedly "deeply concerned about how this will affect their pebble-based economy."

Markets plunged faster than a crypto bro's dating prospects, but the digital asset community is celebrating what they're calling an "obvious win for the future of finance" as NFTs remain blissfully untariffable.

Border Agents Now Checking Hard Drives for Contraband Memes

"Sure you can't hide cocaine in it, but you also can't tariff it," explained Chad McDiamond, a self-proclaimed "crypto visionary" who has been unsuccessfully explaining blockchain to his parents since 2017. "Try putting a customs duty on my CryptoPunk! You can't! It's literally impossible, just like explaining to my dad that my $300,000 JPEG of a smoking monkey isn't a scam."

Sources inside U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirm they've been ordered to "figure out how to check digital wallets for taxable digital goods," with one agent reportedly spending four hours inspecting a teenager's iPhone for "suspicious blockchain activity" before realizing he was just looking at Instagram filters.

AI-Generated Tariff Rates? 

Reports suggested the seemingly random tariff percentages were generated using an AI prompt asking for "the easiest way to generate tariffs," insiders now question whether anyone in the administration possesses the technical knowledge to even operate such technology.

"The President once called Barron a 'computer genius' because he knew how to turn on a laptop without help," revealed a White House source speaking on condition of anonymity. "So are we really confident anyone there knows how to use ChatGPT?"

The source added that when presented with the concept of digital assets, the President reportedly asked if they could "put the Bitcoin in a beautiful safe—the most beautiful safe, maybe ever."

Crypto Twitter Celebrates Their "Victory" Over Physical Reality

The crypto community has wasted no time declaring this development "just another reason why fiat is dead" and "proof that crypto is the only real money," conveniently ignoring the fact that you still can't easily buy groceries with Ethereum without first converting it to one of many US pegged stable coins, or even worse paper dollars.

"This is exactly what Satoshi envisioned," tweeted @MoonLambo420, who has lost approximately $2.3 million in various rug pulls but remains "incredibly bullish" on something called PenguinTariff Coin that launched approximately 37 minutes after Trump's announcement.

The Real Economic Impact: Imaginary

Economists point out that while digital assets may technically avoid tariffs, the actual benefit is about as substantial as an NFT's underlying value.

"Sure, your JPEG of a bored ape isn't subject to import duties," noted Harvard economist Dr. Eleanor Rigby. "But unless you're planning to barter digital monkeys for food during the coming recession, I'm not sure how much that helps the average American."

She added: "Also, I cannot stress this enough—having your assets in a form the government can't easily tax isn't the flex crypto people think it is. We’re cutting taxes for the rich and will need other avenues for revenue. Convincing Trump on a JPEG tax isn’t out of the question."

The Future of Trade: JPEGs All The Way Down

Meanwhile, creative importers are already finding workarounds, with one company announcing plans to "tokenize" physical goods as NFTs, ship the tokens digitally, and then "rematerialize" them in the U.S.

"It's completely revolutionary and definitely not just smuggling with extra steps," insisted Trevor Blocksmith, CEO of DefyTariffs.io. "Next week, we're launching a platform where you can tokenize your car as an NFT when you leave the country and then just download it when you return. With this you can literally download a car!"

As traditional markets continue to crater, crypto enthusiasts remain convinced this is finally their moment of vindication, blissfully unaware that tariffs on mining equipment and microchips might actually affect their digital utopia after all.

At press time, Bitcoin had risen 4%, which crypto Twitter unanimously agreed was "definitely because of the tariff news and not just the usual random fluctuations that happen literally every day." UPDATE: Bitcoin has dropped 4%. UPDATE: Bitcoin has risen 2% UPDATE: I’m just going to push this article. I can't keep up with this.