Trump organizes the dinner for $ Trump Meme Coin investors and casts up ethical concerns

Washington (AP) – President Donald Trump rewarded top investors on Thursday evening in one of his cryptocurrency projects.

About 220 of the largest investors in the $ Trump Meme coin were invited to Trump's luxury golf club in North Virginia, where they dine Filet Mignon and halibut. According to the contributions of the participants on social media, Trump spoke for about half an hour before dancing to the song “YMCA”.

Although the White House insisted that Trump would take part in the event “in his personal time”, he was behind a lectern with the presidential seal when he spoke to an industry that made profits for his family company.

After feeling unfair under President Joe Biden, the crypto industry quickly became a mighty political force and donates large sums to help Trump and friendly legislators. The US Senate is push forward Important pro crypto legislation during Bitcoin prices rise.

However, even some Pro-Trump crypto enthusiasts fear that the president's personal commitment could undermine their efforts, credibility and stability for the industry.

“It is uncomfortable and an unnecessary distraction,” said Nic Carter, a Trump supporter and partner of the Crypto Investment company Castle Island Ventures, who said the president “hugs us to death” with his private crypto shops. “We would much prefer to say goodbye to common sense and leave them.”

Since the President Crypto uses as a platform to earn money for his brand in an unprecedented way, this also creates a way for potentially shady buyers to use the anonymity of the Internet to buy access to the president. The lack of transparency could be seen on a poster board at dinner, where the participants signed a ranking of top investors. Some used their real names; Other pseudonyms used.

There were no media to dinner, and the president was only about an hour in his golf club. Demonstrators gathered outside the club with signs with the inscription “Stop the crypto corruption” and “No corrupt fools”.

Trump said the event was “good, very good” when he returned to the White House.

Concerns regarding Trump's crypto entries are before the inauguration day before the inauguration day

Three days before Trump took office on January 20, he announced the creation of the $ Trump Meme coin at the chic Krypto ball, which was held down the street from the White House. He described it as a way for his followers to “have fun”.

Meme coins are the black sheep of the crypto sector. They are often created as a joke, without not being tended to use real benefits for extremely wild price fluctuations that enrich a small group of insiders at the expense of less highly developed investors.

However, the president's meme coin is different and has a clear benefit: access to Trump. In addition to dinner on Thursday, the top 25 with the president were invited to a private reception, with the top 4 o'clock of $ 100,000 receiving crypto issues and Trump brand watches.

Trump's Meme coin recorded an initial value mirror, followed by a steep decline. His creators, which include one of the controlled entity Trump organizationHundreds of million dollars have earned by collecting fees for business.

First lady Melania Trump Has their own coin coin and Trump's sons Eric and Don Jr. -who lead the Trump organization while their father is president -announced that they are working with an existing company to found a crypto mining company.

The Trump family also has a share of around 60% World Liberty FinancialA crypto project that offers another option on which investors shop and enrich the relatives of the president. World Liberty started her own stablecoin, USD1. The project recently received a thrust when World Liberty announced that an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would use a value of 2 billion US dollars worth $ 2 billion to buy a participation in Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

Stable coins have values ​​of fixed assets such as the US dollar. Emitters benefit with the collecting of interest rates for the government bonds and other assets used to support the stable coins.

Crypto is one of the most important sources of the wealth of the Trump family today.

“He will be a chief seller,” said James Thurber, an emeritus professor from the American university who studied for a long time and taught corruption around the world. “It enables enormous conflicts of interest.”

How Trump has changed his opinion about crypto

“I'm a big crypto fan,” said Trump reporters on board the Air Force One last week Excursion to the Middle East. “I was from the beginning, from the campaign.”

That wasn't always true. During his first term, Trump published in July 2019 that cryptocurrencies were “no money” and had a value that was “very volatile and in the air in the air”.

“Un -regulated crypto assets can be illegal behavior, including drug trafficking,” he added. Even after Trump left office in 2021 in 2021, he told Fox Business Network that Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency in the world, seems to be “as a fraud”.

Trump began to change during a crypto event in his Mar-A-Lago Club in Florida in May 2024 and received the assurances that the supporters of industry would spend a wasteful one in order to re-select it. Another large milestone came in June last June when Trump visited a fundraising campaign with a high dollar in the Haus of San Francisco von David Sacks.

Those who are close to Trump, including his sons and billionaires Elon Muschushelped to continue his hug of the industry. Sacks is now the crypto tsar of the Trump government and many cabinet members -including the trading secretary Howard Lutnick and Defense Minister Pete Hegseth – were enthusiastic crypto boosters for a long time.

“I have no confidence in the dollar,” transport secretary Sean Duffy said in a 2023 interview. “I am optimistic at Bitcoin.”

Trump + Crypto: A political marriage of convenience

Many top crypto supporters were of course careful with traditional politics, but sustained to Trump last year. They are bursting on how bidens securities and Exchange Commission aggressively brought civil lawsuits against several large crypto companies.

Since Trump took office, many such cases have been dropped or, including one who claims that Justin Sun, a crypto entrepreneur born in China, and his company was committed to market manipulations and Paid celebrities For non -mentioned advertising campaigns.

Sun, who once paid 6.2 million US dollars for a work of art in which a banana was glued to a wall, and then ate the banana, helped the Trumps with an early investment of 75 million US dollars at Trump's World Liberty Financial.

Has sun revealed On social media that he is the largest owner of $ Trump Meme coins and takes part in dinner on Thursday.

“I look forward to connecting to everyone, talking about crypto and talking about the future of our industry,” said Sun in advance.

He posted a video from Trump by entering private reception.

“Did you see the helicopter?” Said Trump.

“Yes! Super cool,” replied Sun.

Do you hurt Trump Family winnings other crypto investors?

Trump has signed Executive Orders that promote the industry, including the calls to create A Government Bitcoin Reserve. In March Trump called the first one Cryptocurrency summit in the white house.

But some of the biggest names in the industry, which were often brazen and pronounced, mainly kept mom on Trump's memes and other projects.

“It is not my place to really comment on President Trump's activities,” said Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, at a recent public event.

In the meantime, a first-class priority for crypto-backers, a legislative template in which digital assets are to be regulated, has been promoted in the Senate in the Senate. However, some Democrats have tried to consider other pro-crypto legislation on the personal business of the president and to consider dinner as a particularly outrageous case.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat in Connecticut, said that the meeting was “in force and put a” for sale “sign on the White House.

“It will auction access,” said Blumenthal at a press call on Thursday.

The press spokesman for the White House, Karoline Leavitt, said the President visits “in his personal time”. The White House also said that it has nothing to do with Trump's Meme coin.

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The author of Associated Press, Chris Megerian in Washington, contributed to this story.