Howdy. Ed here.

Crypto has come a long way since Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper in 2008. 

There was Bitcoin-bought pizza, memecoins, the 2021 DeFi summer, and the fall of FTX. 

Now a new landmark development has taken place — Donald Trump’s gala dinner for the top 220 holders of his memecoin. 

The event last week will reshape the crypto narrative in a powerful, and perhaps, immutable way. 

Like it or not, Trump, with all his showmanship and disregard for the norms of his office, has put his stamp in the $3.6 trillion industry. 

In the minds of many who may be new to crypto, the Trump brand is rapidly becoming synonymous with Bitcoin and its ilk as the president and his family pursue a range of crypto-driven businesses. 

Given that the White House and its Republican allies are creating the regulatory regime that will govern the industry at the same time the president and his family are enriching themselves on crypto, well, that’s an issue. 

Trump’s tuxedoed memecoin holders at the event were greeted with cries of “Shame!” and one Democratic senator branded the event a “crypto corruption club,” Aleks Gilbert reported. 

Even Trump crypto supporters are uncomfortable. Nic Carter this week grumbled that Trump was “hugging us to death”

With Bitcoin hitting an all-time high last week, it’s easy to shrug off Trump’s opportunism. Or more to the point, his embrace is the reason Bitcoin and the rest of the market are surging.

Yet over the long term, Trump’s new role as the biggest crypto bro on the planet will undoubtedly change what management consultants like to call the brand equity of the entire blockchain proposition. 

If being crypto also means you’re MAGA, will that deter millions of would-be investors from buying Bitcoin ETFs or opening accounts at Coinbase or Kraken? 

Maybe. 

Elon Musk’s tarnishing of the Tesla brand — the electric automaker’s profits tumbled a staggering 71% in the first quarter as Musk pursued his radical cost-cutting DOGE programme in Washington — jumps to mind.

What is clear is that the US president, the epitome of centralised power, is writing the next chapter of the story begun 17 years ago by Satoshi’s nine-page treatise. 

ICYMI

• The SEC is dismantling crypto rules in game of Jenga, commissioner warns
  Relaxing crypto rules jeopardises not Wall Street, but Main Street Americans. Last Monday, Caroline Crenshaw, the sole Democrat commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission, issued that stark warning at the SEC Speaks conference.

• Stablecoin bill clears Senate hurdle by winning over Democrats

  Landmark stablecoin legislation cleared a key hurdle in the US Senate on Monday. In a 66-32 vote, Senators advanced the Genius Act, legislation that would regulate the issuance of dollar-pegged stablecoins, a kind of crypto asset that has been embraced by fintech titans such as PayPal and Stripe.

• Javier Milei shuts down Libra memecoin investigation — but it’s not over yet
  Argentina’s President Javier Milei pulled the plug on the investigation into his own crypto scandal. Last Tuesday, Argentina’s central government officially disbanded the investigative unit tasked with probing the Libra memecoin scandal — barely three months after it was formed.

Story of the Week

Trump fêtes Justin Sun and other top memecoin holders as protesters decry ‘crypto corruption club’

Crypto may never be the same.

With protestors outside and around 220 of his top memecoin holders inside, Donald Trump on Thursday hosted one of the most extraordinary events in the history of the presidency.

And Justin Sun, the billionaire founder of the Tron blockchain and the top buyer with $40 million of $TRUMP, was in the centre of it all.

Comment of the Week

The Sui blockchain is reeling from a major exploit that affected one of its biggest protocols. Last Thursday, Cetus, the largest decentralised exchange aggregator on Sui, suffered a security breach that resulted in a theft of $220 million. The attacker exploited flaws in the protocol’s smart contracts to drain funds. Manan Vora, a director at Liminal, summed up what happened.

DL News is an independent news organisation that provides original, in-depth reporting on the largely misunderstood world of cryptocurrency and decentralised finance. From original stories to investigations, our journalism is accurate, honest and responsible.

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