$特朗普晚餐

週一清晨，自由世界的領導人有一個信息要傳達。

Early Monday morning, the leader of the free world had a message to convey. Not about the economic turmoil from tariffs, any one of the skirmishes playing out abroad, or a surprise shake-up in his White House staff. Instead, President Donald Trump turned to Truth Social to post about something called the “$TRUMP GALA DINNER,” with a link to gettrumpmemes.com.

週一清晨，自由世界的領導人有一個信息要傳達。與關稅的經濟動盪無關，任何一場小規模衝突在國外播放，或者他的白宮工作人員感到驚訝。取而代之的是，唐納德·特朗普（Donald Trump）總統轉向“真理”（Truth Social Social）發表有關“ $ trump Gala晚餐”的信息，並與getTrumpMemes.com鏈接。

A visit to the latter website paints a slightly fuller picture: Buy as many tokens as you can of Trump’s personal cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, and you could be invited to a private event later this month at the Trump National Golf Club outside Washington, D.C. There, you will get the unique opportunity to meet with the president and “learn about the future of Crypto.” The gala looks very much like a thinly veiled gambit to pump up the price of $TRUMP, a so-called memecoin that is mostly owned by Trump-backed entities. Funnel the greatest amount of money to the president of the United States, and you could win some face time with the big man himself.

訪問後一個網站的畫面略微更全面：購買盡可能多的令牌，特朗普的個人加密貨幣，特朗普$，您可能會被邀請在本月晚些時候在華盛頓特區特朗普國家高爾夫俱樂部，那裡的特朗普國家高爾夫俱樂部參加私人活動，您將獲得與總統見面的獨特機會，並“了解未來的Crypto of Crypto”。晚會看起來非常像一個薄薄的gambit，可以提高特朗普的價格，$ trump是一個所謂的成員，主要由特朗普支持的實體擁有。向美國總統籌集了最大的錢，您可以與大個子本人贏得一些面對面的時間。

In 2021, Trump called bitcoin a “scam.” Now he seems to understand exactly what crypto can do for him personally: namely, make Trump and his family very, very rich. The $TRUMP gala is one part of a constellation of Trump-affiliated crypto efforts that includes Trump Digital Trading Card NFTs, a crypto company called World Liberty Financial, and a bitcoin-mining firm. According to an analysis by Bloomberg, the Trump family has already banked nearly $1 billion from these projects. Long before he descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower a decade ago, Trump’s public image was rooted in his business prowess. But compared with his real-estate projects or The Apprentice, crypto is already turning into his most successful venture yet.

2021年，特朗普稱比特幣為“騙局”。現在，他似乎完全了解加密個人可以為他個人做什麼：即，使特朗普和他的家人非常非常富有。特朗普的盛會是特朗普附屬加密貨幣努力的一部分，其中包括特朗普數字交易卡NFTS，一家名為World Liberty Financial的加密貨幣公司和一家比特幣礦業公司。根據彭博社的一項分析，特朗普家族已經從這些項目中賺了近10億美元。十年前，在他在特朗普大廈的特朗普大廈下降之前很久，特朗普的公開形象就植根於他的商業能力。但是，與他的房地產項目或學徒相比，加密貨幣已經變成了他迄今為止最成功的冒險。

Trump perhaps wouldn’t be president at all if it wasn’t for crypto. During the 2024 campaign, the industry was among his campaign’s biggest donors. That money flowed in from both crypto corporations and individual donors, such as the bitcoin billionaires Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. (The identical twins gave $1 million each in bitcoin to the Trump campaign, but had to be refunded because they exceeded the legal donation limit.) In exchange, Trump promised the imperiled industry a fresh start after four years of a Biden-sanctioned crypto crackdown. Last summer, as the keynote speaker at the annual bitcoin conference, Trump promised that if elected, he would make America the “crypto capital of the planet.” The crypto industry is now getting its money’s worth. Consider the crypto firm Ripple, which spent four years squaring off against Biden’s regulators in federal courtrooms and donated $4.9 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Yesterday, the new administration dropped the government’s case, as the White House has effectively stopped enforcing crypto rules.

如果不是加密貨幣，特朗普也許根本不會擔任總統。在2024年的競選期間，該行業是他競選最大的捐助者之一。這筆錢來自加密公司和個別捐助者，例如比特幣億萬富翁泰勒和卡梅隆·溫克爾沃斯。 （相同的雙胞胎在特朗普競選活動中分別給了比特幣100萬美元，但由於超出了法律捐款的限制，因此必須退款。）作為交換，特朗普承諾在經過四年的Biden批准的加密貨幣攻擊之後，該行業嶄新的開始。去年夏天，作為年度比特幣會議的主題演講者，特朗普承諾，如果當選，他將使美國成為“地球的加密之都”。加密貨幣行業現在正在獲得其資金的價值。考慮一下加密貨幣公司Ripple，該公司在聯邦法庭上花費了四年的時間與拜登的監管機構，並向特朗普的就職典禮捐贈了490萬美元。昨天，新政府放棄了政府的案件，因為白宮有效地停止了執行加密規則。

Trump is still tapping crypto magnates for money. On Monday, he attended a super PAC’s “Crypto & AI Innovators” fundraiser, for which donors shelled out $1.5 million to get in the door. But for Trump, crypto has quickly become about more than soliciting campaign donations and rewarding supporters. In September, Trump announced the launch of World Liberty Financial, a decentralized-finance company to be managed by his sons Eric and Don Jr. and a couple of young entrepreneurs. (One previously ran a company called Date Hotter Girls, while the other is the son of Steve Witkoff, a longtime Trump ally serving as special envoy to the Middle East.) Then, in January, just before Inauguration Day, he launched $TRUMP. Like all memecoins, it has no underlying business fundamentals or links to real-world assets—the point is to just quickly capitalize on a viral trend, conjuring value out of practically nothing. This proved extremely lucrative almost immediately: $TRUMP initially spiked in value before crashing back down, at one point accounting for almost 90 percent of the president’s net worth. (There’s also an official $MELANIA coin, if that’s more your thing.)

特朗普仍在攻擊加密富豪大亨。週一，他參加了超級PAC的“加密貨幣和AI創新者”籌款活動，為此，捐助者為此付出了150萬美元的投入。但是對於特朗普來說，加密貨幣迅速​​不僅僅是徵求競選捐贈和獎勵支持者。 9月，特朗普宣布推出世界自由金融公司，這是一家分散的金融公司，由他的兒子埃里克（Eric）和小唐（Don Jr.）和幾個年輕企業家管理。 （一家以前經營著一家名為Date Hot Tir Girls的公司，而另一家公司是史蒂夫·維科夫（Steve Witkoff）的兒子，史蒂夫·維特科夫（Steve Witkoff）是一個長期的特朗普盟友，擔任中東特別使節。）然後，在一月份，就在就職典禮那天之前，他推出了$ trump。像所有成員一樣，它沒有潛在的業務基本面或與現實世界資產的鏈接 - 關鍵是要快速利用病毒趨勢，幾乎沒有任何東西來觸發價值。事實證明，這幾乎立即被證明是非常有利可圖的：$特朗普最初在崩潰之前就價值飆升，佔總統淨資產的近90％。 （如果這是您的事情，還有一個官方的$ Melania硬幣。）

With crypto, Trump has found an unnervingly effective way to transmute the clout and power of the nation’s highest office into cold, hard cash. Last week, World Liberty Financial announced that its cryptocurrency, USD1, would facilitate an Abu Dhabi investment firm’s $2 billion stake in the crypto exchange Binance. Eric and Don Jr. are also on the crypto press circuit, with plans to speak at the 2025 bitcoin conference later this month. Some of Trump’s decisions as president, such as creating a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” may also function to inflate his crypto riches, in the sense that a rising tide lifts all boats؛ promoting crypto as part of the national interest can only support the idea that these coins are worth buying into.

借助加密貨幣，特朗普找到了一種令人難以置信的有效方法，可以將美國最高職位的影響力和權力轉移到寒冷，硬現金中。上週，世界自由金融（World Liberty Financial）宣布，其加密貨幣（USD1）將促進阿布扎比投資公司在加密貨幣交易所二手股票中的20億美元股份。埃里克（Eric）和小唐（Don Jr.）也在加密新聞巡迴賽上，計劃在本月晚些時候在2025年比特幣會議上發言。特朗普作為總統的一些決定，例如建立“戰略比特幣儲備”，也可能起作用他的加密貨幣財富，從某種意義上說，漲潮會升起所有的船隻؛促進加密作為國家利益的一部分只能支持這些硬幣值得購買的想法。

The White House insists that there is nothing to see here. “His assets are in a trust managed by his children, and

白宮堅持認為這裡沒有什麼可見的。 “他的資產是由他的孩子管理的信託，