05-15-2025 
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Stablecoin legislation appears stalled in Congress, President Trump’s memecoin dinner guest list is set, and companies are getting ever more brazen in spending big to get Trump’s attention.
- GENIUS status uncertain
- A tale of two SEC chairmen
- Winner winner, $TRUMP coin dinner
- China-linked firm with no revenue buying $300 million worth of $TRUMP
- Dems demand Trump crypto probes
- No Truth Social memecoin … yet
- Lobbyist tricked Trump into promoting XRP
The Senate has yet to schedule any fresh votes on another revised version of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, the last version of which failed to secure enough votes to move beyond the procedural stage last week. The failure came as even a few Republicans joined the Democrats in voting ‘nay,’ including those who objected to private companies issuing their own stablecoins.
(Speaking of, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta (NASDAQ: META) is reportedly preparing to incorporate stablecoins into its social media platforms once GENIUS and its companion legislation in the House of Representatives (STABLE) are finally approved. Zuckerberg’s previous attempts to launch an in-house digital asset (Libra/Diem) were scrapped after pushback from Congress, but that was long before Trump 2.0 eliminated such concerns.)
Reports have since emerged that both GOP and Dem senators continue to haggle over certain GENIUS clauses. However, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) cautioned that while a fresh GENIUS vote might not be “a ways off, I don’t think it’s immediate either.” Gallego told Politico that the parties were “90% of the way there,” with both sides reportedly giving ground to try and push this reluctant mule over the finish line.
To help them make up their minds, a ‘dark money’ group associated with the crypto-funded Fairshake political action committee appears to be issuing veiled threats of retribution against any pol who dare gum up these works. Punchbowl News reported on the Cedar Innovation Fund warning Senate leadership to “avoid political games and pass a final stablecoin bill in the coming days.”
Cedar’s 2024 campaign spending helped defeat crypto scold Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in favor of the pro-crypto Bernie Moreno. Fairshake and its affiliated groups have already amassed nearly $100 million to spend in the 2026 midterm elections, and Brian Armstrong and Paul Grewal—CEO and chief legal officer, respectively, of Fairshake’s primary funder, Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN)—both retweeted the Punchbowl report.
On May 14, Armstrong tweeted that he was in D.C. pressing legislators to bring GENIUS up for another vote “hopefully tomorrow.” However, that timeline appears to be news to most legislators who’ve spoken publicly on the subject since last week’s failed vote.
Gensler’s crypto views were complicated, Atkins’ views are not
One of the biggest stablecoin boosters in the previous Congress was former Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who also got a market structure bill through a House floor vote (although it failed to move on to the Senate before Congress adjourned for the 2024 election).
This week, McHenry told Crypto In America’s Eleanor Terrett that Gary Gensler, former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), wasn’t so vehemently opposed to all things crypto. At least, not as opposed as he was during public hearings on Capitol Hill.
McHenry said Gensler “saw the value of digital assets” and you could have “very reasonable” discussions with him on the subject. But Gensler simultaneously held the same “progressive ideology” espoused by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), another famous crypto antagonist. McHenry said Gensler’s contradictory views may have had more to do with “Senate politics and confirmation politics than anything else.”
Nobody will confuse Gensler’s crypto views with those of his SEC replacement Paul Atkins, who was sworn into office late last month. In the most recent ‘crypto round table’ held at the SEC offices on May 12, Atkins laid out his vision for how America can become the “crypto capital of the planet.”
Atkins said a “key priority” of his SEC tenure “will be to develop a rational regulatory framework for crypto asset markets that establishes clear rules of the road for the issuance, custody, and trading of crypto assets while continuing to discourage bad actors from violating the law.”
Starting with issuance, Atkins said the SEC will “establish clear and sensible guidelines for distributions of crypto assets that are securities or subject to an investment contract.”
Atkins noted that SEC staff had recently “clarified the view that certain distributions and crypto assets do not implicate the federal securities laws, and I expect the staff to continue to provide clarifications at my direction with regard to other types of distributions and assets.”
As for custody, Atkins hailed the SEC’s January rescission of the industry-loathed Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121. But Atkins said the SEC needs to “provide clarity on the types of custodians that qualify as a ‘qualified custodian’ under the Advisers Act and Investment Company Act, as well as reasonable exceptions from the qualified custody requirements to accommodate certain common practices within crypto asset markets.”
This could include allowing “advisers and funds to engage in self-custody under certain circumstances” and to “repeal and replace the ‘special purpose broker-dealer’ framework with a more rational regime.”
On the subject of trading, Atkins said he is “in favor of allowing registrants to trade a broader variety of products on their platforms and in response to market demand.” Atkins has asked SEC staff “to help us devise ways to modernize the [alternative trading system] regulatory regime to better accommodate crypto assets.”
Atkins added that he “would like to explore whether conditional exemptive relief would be appropriate for registrants and non-registrants that seek to bring new products and services to market that may otherwise not be compatible with current Commission rules and regulations.”
Winner winner, $TRUMP dinner
On May 12, the company behind President Trump’s $TRUMP memecoin announced the winners of the ‘dinner with Trump’ contest. The Gettrumpmemes site’s ‘leaderboard’ of the top 220 $TRUMP-holding wallets was frozen in place, securing invitations to the ‘gala dinner’ at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia on May 22.
The top 25 wallets on this list will also be invited to a ‘Special VIP Tour’ of something or other. The contest previously promoted a ‘Special White House Tour’ for the top-25’ers but this appears to have been downgraded to “an ultra-exclusive private VIP Reception with the President. And separately by us to a Special Tour.” It’s unclear who ‘us’ refers to, and hopefully this ‘tour’ doesn’t conclude on Gilligan’s Island.
The top wallet on the list is labeled ‘Sun,’ and is controlled by the Seychelles-based HTX (formerly Huobi) exchange. This is believed to be a reference to Tron network founder Justin Sun, who has long been rumored to control HTX but publicly claims to be a mere adviser.
At least one of the top-10 wallets didn’t even begin buying $TRUMP until May 6, but it quickly bought $13 million worth of the token, virtually guaranteeing an invite to the dinner and ‘tour.’
The dinner invitees were told to expect a call from the contest organizers with further details, including the fact that they’ll have to pass a background check and dry-clean their formal attire (black-tie optional, but preferred). Oh, and they’re also prohibited from bringing any “firearms, explosives, knives, mace/pepper spray, drones, and other potential safety hazards.” Good to know.
Critics of the dinner have noted that more than half of the top 25 holders appear to be non-U.S. residents, adding to concerns that purchasing $TRUMP is a convenient way to lobby the President on issues of concern to token holders.Predictably, the fiat value of $TRUMP, which soared in the wake of the April 23 contest announcement and soared again in the final days of the contest, lost about 15% in the aftermath of the winners being named. Some of the biggest sellers included many of those who’d secured their dinner invitations. Don’t forget to tip your servers, people.
A $300 million TikTok dance for an audience of one
Concerns about foreigners looking to influence the President by buying his memecoin will only grow louder as more foreign entities go public with their $TRUMP plans.
On May 12, GD Culture Group (GDC) (NASDAQ: GDC), a little-known Nasdaq-listed company with eight employees, announced plans to sell up to $300 million worth of its stock to an unidentified “accredited investor, a British Virgin Island limited liability company.” The proceeds will be used “to support the Company’s crypto asset treasury strategy,” which appears to involve only two tokens: BTC and $TRUMP.
GDC currently conducts its business (such as it is) “mainly through its subsidiaries, AI Catalysis Corp. and Shanghai Xianzhui Technology Co, Ltd.” GDC claims to use AI to generate “digital human models” in TikTok ads to sell products like snacks, appliances and garden tools.
However, this e-commerce business reported precisely zero revenue last year, and GDC revealed last month that it was in danger of being struck off the Nasdaq for failing to “maintain a minimum of $2.5 million in stockholders’ equity.”
In January, GDC announced that it had decided to “discontinue an online livestreaming gaming business after conducting a comprehensive assessment.” The new strategy was to “optimize resources and focus on areas with greater long-term potential.” You know, like buying memecoins.
Dems check ‘express outrage’ on to-do list
On May 14, three prominent House Dems—Gerald Connolly (D-VA), Joseph Morelle (D-NY) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD), all ranking members on different House committees—sent a letter to Treasury secretary Scott Bessent seeking access to any/all suspicious activity reports (SARs) related to some GOP political action committees, as well as SARs related to “Trump Family Crypto Ventures.”
The Dems cite Trump’s growing range of ‘crypto ventures,’ including the dueling memecoins issued by the President and his wife Melania, the World Liberty Financial (WLF) decentralized finance (DeFi) project, and Justin Sun, who was named a WLF adviser after buying $75 million worth of WLF’s governance token.
The letter seeks SARs from 2023 to the present day, particularly those related to “foreign-influence seeking.” The Dems say Trump’s crypto ventures “have raised myriad concerns about potential bribery, influence-peddling, threats to national security, market manipulation, and/or predatory and deceptive practices targeting vulnerable Americans.”
Not to be outdone, a group of Senate Dems sent their own letter to Bessent, this one focused on Binance, the world’s leading digital asset exchange. Specifically, the letter asks about reports that Binance execs had met with Treasury officials to see about maybe lifting the transaction monitors imposed as a result of the company’s 2023 $4.3 billion settlement for violating U.S. anti-money laundering rules. The Dems also want details on reports that Binance had been talking with the Trump family about the latter taking a financial stake in Binance.
Has Bessent responded to either of these letters? Not publicly. Does Bessent care? Doubt it. Can the Dems do anything about that? Not really. Alrighty, then… Over to you, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT).
Truth Social not issuing a token … yet
The senators’ letter briefly referenced WLF’s recent launch of USD1, a dollar-denominated stablecoin that saw its market cap surge last month after Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX Fund Management purchased $2 billion of the tokens to invest in Binance.
On May 14, New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan asked Trump how MGX’s $2 billion USD1 transaction came about. Trump said, “I really don’t know anything about it. But I’m a big crypto fan, I will tell you … I’m a believer in crypto.”
So much so that it’s getting harder to tell when reports of new Trump crypto ventures are accurate. Trump’s son Donald Jr., who along with his brother Eric is listed as a WLF ‘Web3 Ambassador,’ was recently forced to deny reports that the president’s social media platform Truth Social was issuing its own memecoin.
On May 12, Ran Neuner tweeted that a “Truth Social Memecoin” would be “launching in next 72 hours.” Truth Social’s official account called this claim “fake news,” while Donald Jr. tweeted that there was “no truth whatsoever” to the claim.
Despite Jr’s protestations, Truth Social’s parent company Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) issued a letter to shareholders on April 29 that said the company was “exploring the introduction of a utility token within a Truth digital wallet that can initially be used to pay for [Truth Social streaming app] Truth+ subscription costs, and later be applied to other products and services in the Truth ecosphere.” So it would appear to be more a question of Neuner jumping the gun rather than speaking totally out of school.
If you want Trump to pump your token, be upfront about it
Speaking of crypto missteps, we recently learned that an overzealous crypto promoter used his proximity to the president to boost the fortunes of Ripple Labs’ XRP token, although the pumper was dumped by the White House shortly thereafter.
On March 2, Trump’s Truth Social account posted a message previewing an executive order directing his Presidential Working Group on digital assets “to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA.” XRP’s fiat price jumped by around one-third on the news, although in true ‘crypto’ fashion, it quickly surrendered much of these gains and even slipped below its pre-pump price.
On May 8, Politico reported that the president had been encouraged to issue the post naming the three tokens by an associate of Ballard Partners, the lobbying group run by Trump fundraiser Brian Ballard. The unidentified employee reportedly buttonholed Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that weekend, going as far as to present Trump with specific wording for the post, which she allegedly told Trump would endear him to the crypto sector.
It was only after the post had been issued that Trump learned Ripple was a Ballard client. The president was said to be “furious” and feeling “like he’d been used.” Trump’s fury was reportedly egged on by his ‘AI & Crypto Czar’ David Sacks, who didn’t like being caught unaware by the president’s public crypto statements.
The net result was Ballard’s effective banishment from Trump’s inner circle, with Trump telling his senior staff that Ballard “is not welcome in anything anymore.”
However, Axios subsequently reported that Ballard had secured an audience with Trump and reached an understanding. A source claimed Ballard was “not a pariah, at least not anymore,” although Ballard had been warned to “go through the proper channels” in future.
It’s difficult to fathom Trump’s alleged outrage at having pumped XRP, considering Trump has publicly promoted his own crypto ventures on multiple occasions. Unless, of course, the outrage stems solely from Trump not having a stake in the asset/project being promoted (WLF’s portfolio features over 100 different assets but XRP isn’t one of them).
Ripple did donate $5 million in XRP to Trump’s inaugural fund, the single largest crypto contributor on that list. Ripple was also one of the largest contributors to the Fairshake PAC in the 2024 election cycle and contributed another $25 million for the 2026 midterms. Okay, but what have you done for Trump lately?
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