The crypto industry saw Trump as a champion. Some now fear he’s putting personal profits first
WASHINGTON AP It seems like a triumph for a cryptocurrency industry that has long sought mainstream acceptance Top investors in one of President Donald Trump s crypto projects invited to dine with him at his luxury golf club in Northern Virginia on the heels of the Senate advancing key pro-crypto ordinance and while bitcoin prices soar But Thursday night s dinner for the biggest investors in the TRUMP meme coin has raised uncomfortable questions about potentially shadowy buyers using the anonymity of the internet to buy access to the president While Democrats charge that Trump is using the power of the presidency to boost profits for his family business even a few pro-Trump crypto enthusiasts worry that the president s push into meme coins isn t helping their efforts to establish the credibility stability and legitimacy they had thought his administration would bring to their businesses After feeling unfairly targeted by the Biden administration the industry has briskly become a dominant political force donating huge sums to help Trump and crypto-friendly lawmakers But that s also served to tether the industry sometimes uncomfortably to a president who is using crypto as a platform to make money for his brand in unprecedented approaches It s distasteful and an unnecessary distraction stated Nic Carter a Trump supporter and partner at the crypto expenditure firm Castle Island Ventures who declared the president is hugging us to death with his private crypto businesses We would much rather that he passes common-sense act and leave it at that Concerns about Trump s crypto ventures predate Inauguration Day At the swanky Crypto Ball held down the street from the White House three days before he took office on Jan Trump stated the creation of the meme coin TRUMP as a way for his supporters to have fun Meme coins are the crypto sector s black sheep They are often created as a joke with no real utility and prone to extremely wild price swings that tend to enrich a small group of insiders at the expense of less sophisticated investors The president s meme coin is different however and has a clear utility access to Trump The top investors of TRUMP are set to attend a private reception with the president Thursday with the top four getting crypto-themed and Trump-branded watches Trump s meme coin saw an initial spike in value followed by a steep drop The price saw a vital increase after the dinner contest was released Its creators which include an entity controlled by the Trump Organization have made hundreds of millions of dollars by collecting fees on trades First lady Melania Trump has her own meme coin and Trump s sons Eric and Don Jr who are running the Trump Organization while their father is president disclosed they are partnering with an existing firm to create a crypto mining company The Trump family also holds about a stake in World Liberty Financial a crypto project that provides yet another avenue where investors are buying in and enriching the president s relatives World Liberty has launched its own stablecoin USD The project got a boost in recent months when World Liberty declared an commitment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using billion worth of USD to purchase a stake in Binance the world s largest cryptocurrency exchange A rapidly growing form of crypto stablecoins have values pegged to fixed assets like the U S dollar Issuers profit by collecting the interest on the Treasury bonds and other assets used to back the stablecoins Crypto is now one of the largest part important sources of the Trump family s wealth He s becoming a salesman-in-chief commented James Thurber an American University professor emeritus who has long studied and taught about corruption around the world It allows for foreign influence easily It allows for crypto lobbying going on at this dinner and other tactics It allows for huge conflicts of interest How Trump changed his mind on crypto I m a big crypto fan Trump recounted reporters aboard Air Force One during last week s trip to the Middle East I ve been that from the beginning right from the campaign That wasn t inevitably true During his first term Trump posted in July that cryptocurrencies were not money and had value that was highly volatile and based on thin air Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior including drug deal he added then Even after leaving office in Trump informed Fox Business Architecture that bitcoin the world s the greater part popular cryptocurrency seems like a scam Trump began to shift during a crypto event at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in May receiving assurances that industry backers would spend lavishly to get him reelected Another major milestone came last June when Trump attended a high-dollar benefit at the San Francisco home of David Sacks He further warmed to the industry weeks later when Trump met at Mar-a-Lago with bitcoin miners The following month he addressed a major crypto conference in Nashville promising to make the U S the crypto capital of the planet Those close to Trump including his sons and billionaire Elon Musk helped further push his embrace of the industry Sacks is now the Trump administration s crypto czar and a large number of Cabinet members including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have long been enthusiastic crypto boosters I don t have faith in the dollar Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy commented in a interview I m bullish on bitcoin Trump crypto A political marriage of convenience Countless top crypto backers were naturally wary of traditional politics but gravitated toward Trump last year They bristled at Democratic President Joe Biden s Securities and Exchange Commission aggressively bringing civil suits against several major crypto companies Since Trump took office a multitude of such cases have been dropped or paused including one alleging that Justin Sun a China-born crypto entrepreneur and his company engaged in region manipulation and paid celebrities for undisclosed promotions Sun who once paid million for a piece of art involving a banana taped to a wall and then ate the banana helped the Trumps start World Liberty Financial with an early million outlay Sun has disclosed on social media that he is the biggest holder of TRUMP meme coins and is attending Thursday s dinner I m excited to connect with everyone talk crypto and discuss the future of our industry Sun declared Are Trump family profits hurting other crypto investors Trump has signed executive orders promoting the industry including calls to create a governing body bitcoin reserve In March Trump convened the first cryptocurrency summit at the White House But chosen of the industry s biggest names often brash and outspoken have kept mostly mum on Trump s meme coins and other projects It s not my place to really comment on President Trump s activity Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong noted at a latest population event Meanwhile a top legislative priority for crypto-backers a bill clarifying how digital assets are to be regulated has advanced in the Senate But chosen Democrats have tried to stall other pro-crypto provision over the president s personal dealings Never in American history has a sitting president so blatantly violated the ethics laws Democratic Rep Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts explained during a contentious House hearing earlier this month The White House referred questions about dinner attendees to the Trump Organization which didn t provide a list of who is coming The President is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people not for himself White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly mentioned in a report In addition to Sun however several attendees have publicized qualifying for the dinner Another will be Sheldon Xia the founder of a cryptocurrency exchange called BitMart that s registered in the Cayman Islands Proud to sponsorship President Trump s pro-crypto vision Xia wrote in both English and Chinese on social media Thurber the expert on regime and ethics explained Trump s personal attention to crypto at this dinner helps the crypto industry But also it s risky he reported because they could all lose a lot of money Source
