Leading cryptocurrency companies have invested $131 million in the US congressional race, and individual cryptocurrency-interested billionaires have spent millions to help return Donald Trump to the White House. According to a tracker called Stand with Crypto, as of November 2024, 274 pro-crypto candidates have been elected to the House of Representatives and 20 — to the Senate.
Corporations and the wealthy, as we know, do not give money away — they invest it. Now a new order is emerging in Washington, where politics and business are too closely intertwined, and the line between the interests of the state and corporations is becoming less clear…
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On January 17, the eve of Trump’s inauguration, the luxurious «Crypto Ball» took place, with tickets selling for thousands of dollars. It featured performances by Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, and Soulja Boy. VIP tickets were sold for $100 thousand, and a package that included a dinner with Trump’s company cost — $1 million. In general, tickets to the gala cost from $2,500. VIPs had access to two separate tiered rooms with a balcony overlooking the crowd below. Several attendees even whispered that it was «like in «The Hunger Games».
The event was hosted by David Sachs, co-founder of PayPal and general partner of Craft Ventures, who was appointed as the «crypto czar» in the White House. Among the sponsors: Coinbase, MicroStrategy, and Galaxy Digital. Among the attendees were Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell, Gemini co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and Coinbase executives, including Global Policy Director Fariar Shirzad.
In 48 hours, the net worth of the Trump family increased by billions of dollars in newly launched digital assets. Crypto firms made substantial contributions to Trump’s inaugural fund: Ripple donated $5 million in tokens, while Coinbase, Kraken, and Circle each donated $1 million. Online brokerage Robinhood contributed $2 million.
Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht, who ran Silk Road, a darknet marketplace where illegal goods were sold. He was detained by the FBI in 2013. In 2015, Ulbricht was convicted in New York for conspiracy to traffic in illegal substances and money laundering. He was given a life sentence. More precisely, two life sentences plus another 40 years. The FBI called Silk Road «a digital marketplace» of illegal goods and services that buyers and sellers accessed through Tor — a network designed to conceal the identity and location of its users. The FBI reported that hundreds of millions of dollars were transacted through Silk Road, and more than $13 million was earned in commissions.
By the way, two films have been made about Ulbricht: Silk Road: Drugs, Death and the Dark Web (2017) and Deep Web (2015).
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has begun creation of a «cryptocurrency working group»whose 24 members will deal with the regulation of the digital asset market. So far, the exact composition is not known, but there is a suspicion of another «surprise» in the form of associates of corporations and crypto companies.
Trump announced investments totaling 500 billion in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the United States. The project is called Stargate. It is a joint project of OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle. The Stargate plan envisages the construction of 10 data centers in Texas over the next 4 years, followed by other states. During the announcement of this initiative turned out to beThe US president knows almost nothing about the famous TRUMP tokensthat literally blew up the market over the weekend: «I don’t know much about it except that I launched it and it was very successful». TRUMP quickly reached a market capitalization of $15 billion and almost instantly floated on major exchanges. This is possibly one of the most successful launches in the history of cryptocurrencies.
However, the TRUMP token is so poor that some have called it fraudulent. Memcoins are one of the wildest and most unregulated types of cryptocurrency. They have no real value, but are very volatile. That is, they can rise sharply in price if enough people buy them. And then they can fall in the same way. Often, fraudsters try to inflate (pump up) the price of some memecoins in order to dump them to inexperienced investors (dump). This is a very common scheme. Some crypto enthusiasts have even joked that they miss former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
Here is another interesting statistic on TRUMP that explains well what memecoins are:
Earned
Lost
Since TRUMP was launched on Solana, the value of the blockchain’s native token — SOL — has soared to a new all-time high of $295. TRUMP’s online trading volume reached billions, and the number of requests for the Solana Phantom Wallet reached 8 million per minute. This activity led Solana to completely break its record for daily collections, which reached $35.53 million, which is 2.5 times higher than the previous record of $13.86 million in November last year.
Thanks to the personalized memecoin, Trump became a crypto billionaire.
The 47th President of the United States signed an order to suspend the Congressional ban on TikTok for 75 days, during which they will look for an American buyer to conclude a deal that can protect national security interests. Trump even said that he would not mind if Elon Musk (CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, owner of the social network X) or Larry Ellison (co-founder of Oracle) bought TikTok.
Musk’s personality (or rather, his publications) is associated with the promotion of the Dogecoin (DOGE) meme coin. Last year, Trump appointed billionaire and pro-Russian entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy
P. S. If you’re interested in seeing what Trump has already signed, and not just about cryptocurrencies, you can get acquainted with the official list.