President Trump is courting the biggest backers of his official meme coin as he deepens his financial involvement with the crypto industry.
Trump’s $TRUMP cryptocurrency, which he launched just before taking office in January, surged 30% following a Wednesday announcement of a gala dinner for the meme coin’s 220 biggest holders.
The event will be held May 22 at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. The 25 biggest Trump coin holders will also receive an invite for a “special tour,” along with a “private VIP reception with the President.”
The private dinner invitation follows a separate announcement earlier this week from the president’s namesake Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) of a partnership with crypto exchange Crypto.com to launch a series of ETFs under the Truth.Fi brand. These ETFs would hold “Made in America” crypto and stocks.
President Trump continues to embrace the crypto industry by encouraging more favorable regulation of digital assets while also participating financially in their rising popularity. The combination is uncharted territory for a US president and has drawn scrutiny for signaling a series of perceived conflicts of interest.
He has signed two crypto-focused executive orders since moving to the White House.
The first, signed in January, spurred the executive branch to work with Congress to make way for better regulation for the industry. It also eliminated the possibility for the government to pursue a central bank digital currency.
The second, signed in March, authorized the creation of a strategic bitcoin reserve and a separate US stockpile of other digital assets.
The president has also brought some of the biggest names in crypto to the White House for an exclusive crypto summit. And the Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped a number of lawsuits against some of the biggest names in the crypto industry.
Trump has other crypto-related ventures beyond his meme coin and Trump Media’s Truth.Fi.
Trump and his sons are also backers of another crypto project called World Liberty Financial. Last month, World Liberty announced it would launch a stablecoin backed by short-term US Treasurys, US dollar deposits, and other cash equivalents.
It will be issued on blockchains from ethereum and Binance, a crypto exchange sued by the SEC during the Biden administration. After Trump took office, the SEC put that case on hold.
World Liberty’s push into stablecoins comes as Congress discusses legislation that could give stablecoin issuers a new regulatory framework, thus opening the coins to wider mainstream acceptance.
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