Trump invites top investors in his $TRUMP meme coin to White House dinner

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 legislation and while bitcoin prices soar.

Top investors in one of President Donald Trump's crypto projects are being invited to dine with him at his luxury golf club in Northern Virginia on Thursday, a move that has raised concerns about shadowy buyers using the anonymity of the internet to gain access to the president.

The 220 biggest investors in the $TRUMP meme coin are set to attend the reception with Trump at the Trump National Golf Club in the evening, where the top four will be presented with $100,000 crypto-themed and Trump-branded watches.

The president's meme coin has seen an initial spike in value, followed by a steep drop. Its creators, which include an entity controlled by the Trump Organization, are collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in fees on trades.

The initiative is part of a broader push by Trump to integrate crypto into his family business empire. His wife, 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, announced they are partnering with an existing firm to create a crypto mining company.

The Trump family also holds about a 60% 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, USD1. The project got a boost recently when World Liberty announced an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 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.

Trump's administration has poured billions of dollars into a new initiative to prop up the battered banking system in the U.A.E., a move that is likely to pour even more assets into the USD1 stablecoin and Trump's family investment vehicle.

Crypto is now one of the most significant sources of the Trump family's wealth.

"He's becoming a salesman-in-chief," said 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 ways. It allows for huge conflicts of interest."

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. 20, Trump announced 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, have no real utility and are 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 25 investors of $TRUMP are set to attend a private reception with the president Thursday, with the top four getting $100,000 crypto-themed and Trump-branded watches.

The initiative is part of a broader push by Trump to integrate crypto into his family business empire. His wife, 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, announced they are partnering with an existing firm to create a crypto mining company.

The Trump family also holds about a 60% 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, USD1. The project got a boost recently when World Liberty announced an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 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.

Trump's administration has poured billions of dollars into a new initiative to prop up the battered banking system in the U.A.E., a move that is likely to pour even more assets into the USD1 stablecoin and Trump's family investment vehicle.

Crypto is now one of the most significant sources of the Trump family's wealth.

"He's becoming a salesman-in-chief," said 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 ways. It allows for huge