05-29-2025 
|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
President Donald Trump‘s media company plans to spend $2.5 billion buying BTC for itself, and a Senator claims Trump supports her plan to spend hundreds of billions buying BTC for America.
- $TRUMP dinner fallout lingers
- TMTG raising $2.5 billion to buy BTC
- GOP unbothered by Trump crypto ventures
- GENIUS amendments breeding like bunnies
- Lummis claims Trump ‘supports’ BTC reserve bill
- Math is hard, particularly when governments want to buy BTC
The fallout from last week’s controversial dinner for the top 220 holders of President Trump’s $TRUMP memecoin continues to reverberate in Washington and beyond, despite the unwillingness of the administration or Congressional Republicans to discuss it.
Among the more interesting highlights that dinner attendees deigned to disclose—including that the menu consisted of “Walmart steak”—was the president’s exceedingly brief appearance. By most accounts, Trump spoke for only about 20 minutes, and his speech contained no new announcements, instead rehashing tales of his 2024 election win and slamming his predecessor’s border policies.
Beyond his speech, Trump didn’t interact directly with any attendees beyond the elite top 25 $TRUMP holders, who were granted a brief pre-dinner audience but came away without an opportunity to speak, shake hands or get a picture with the president.
It’s unclear whether the media spotlight on the dinner—fanned by Democrats and watchdog groups, some of whom protested outside the Trump-owned Virginia golf course at which the dinner was held—influenced the brevity of Trump’s participation or whether that was his plan all along.
Before the dinner, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a list of attendees wouldn’t be made public because Trump was attending the event “in his personal time.” However, images that leaked from the event clearly show Trump speaking from a podium bearing the presidential seal, offering the appearance of an official presidential event.
According to New York Times reporter Eric Lipton, the dinner guests came “particularly from Asia, from China, from Singapore, from Korea. Many of them are major crypto players from Asia, and they are seeking in some cases to enter the United States marketplace. And they’re seeking a regulatory blessing from the Trump administration to begin to seek profits here in the United States.”
Among the Asian whales in attendance was Tron founder Justin Sun, who was making his first trip stateside since before the pandemic. After Trump left the building, Sun celebrated the president in a brief address to the attendees, flashing the Trump-branded watch he received for being the top $TRUMP holder.
While Sun was celebrating, $TRUMP’s fiat value was crashing hard from nearly $16 on the day of the dinner to around $12.50 the day after. The majority of the top 25 holders were among those selling the tokens, suggesting these holders believed the tokens had already served all the purposes they would ever offer. (Sun was not among those selling his $TRUMP.)
The day after the dinner, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) tweeted that the “pump & dump … warranted investigation” and vowed to continue his probe of all of the president’s various crypto ventures.
TMTG buys the top
That list of ventures grew larger on Monday as Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of the Truth Social platform, announced plans to raise $2.5 billion via a private placement offering involving “approximately 50 institutional investors.”
The funds—$1.5 billion worth of TMTG stock and $1 billion in new debt—will be used “for the creation of a Bitcoin treasury.” The offering is expected to close on May 29, while the soon-to-be-acquired BTC will be custodied by Anchorage Digital and the Crypto.com exchange.
TMTG’s shares (DJT) had been trading around $25 for the past week, but shot up to $30 early Tuesday after the announcement was made. However, the stock quickly cratered to $22.64 before limping to $23.05 by the market’s close.
TMTG joins an ever-expanding list of crypto ‘treasury’ firms borrowing to buy BTC, following the trail blazed by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) (NASDAQ: MSTR). This corporate influx has largely replaced retail buyers, who have grown weary of BTC’s inexplicable price movements.
TMTG’s announcement came just one day after the company rubbished a Financial Times report that claimed the company was looking to raise $3 billion for the purposes described above. A TMTG spokesperson was quoted saying, “Apparently the Financial Times has dumb writers listening to even dumber sources,” and later told Reuters the report was “fake news.” But it seems ‘fake’ really means ‘scoop.’
In its Monday announcement, TMTG chairman Devin Nunes stated that the company considers the BTC token to be “an apex instrument of financial freedom” that will “help defend our Company against harassment and discrimination by financial institutions, which plague many Americans and U.S. firms, and will create synergies for subscription payments, a utility token, and other planned transactions across Truth Social and Truth+.”
Last month, TMTG told its shareholders it was “exploring the introduction of a utility token” to be used within “the Truth ecosphere.” A few weeks later, some social media mavens claimed a Truth Social memecoin launch was imminent, and while these claims were quickly shot down by both Truth Social and Donald Trump Jr., TMTG’s initial response to the fundraising reports suggests that we should take Trump denials with a grain of salt.
TMTG previously announced plans to issue a series of crypto-themed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) under its Truth.fi brand via a partnership with Crypto.com. These ETFs will be based on a ‘basket’ of digital assets, including BTC, Crypto.com’s in-house CRO token and “other crypto assets,” which may or may not include those linked to Trump.
No-see GOP
Sen. Blumenthal clearly has his investigative work cut out for him, but the Dems currently control neither legislative chamber, meaning their powers to hold Trump to account are limited. And if they’re expecting support from their Republican colleagues, they appear to be out of luck.
This past Sunday, House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) repeatedly dodged questions about the $TRUMP dinner during his appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, claiming that he didn’t “know anything about the dinner.”
Host Jake Tapper pressed Johnson on why he appeared so disinterested in investigating Trump’s crypto ties when the speaker enthusiastically led an investigation into the “questionable business dealings” of former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
Johnson replied that Trump’s crypto embrace was different because he “does everything out in the open. He’s not trying to hide anything. There’s no shell companies or fake LLCs or fake family businesses. He’s putting it out there so everybody can evaluate for themselves.” Everybody but Johnson, that is.
In an appearance on CNBC, Rep. French Hill (R-AK) called the dinner “you know, whatever. That’s to me a distraction from the work I think we need to do for the major big picture macro policy.”As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee (FSC), Hill is the point person for pushing digital asset legislation. These include the STABLE bill he co-authored with Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) to regulate ‘payment stablecoins‘ and an updated version of the FIT21 market structure bill approved by the House one year ago.
A discussion draft of the new market structure bill was released earlier this month, and the FSC has scheduled a hearing titled ‘American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets: From Blueprint to a Functional Framework’ for June 10 at 10 am EST.
GENIUS a work in progress
On May 22, the Wall Street Journal reported that JPMorgan Chase (NASDAQ: JPM), Bank of America, Citigroup (NASDAQ: C), Wells Fargo (NASDAQ: WFC) and other large commercial banks were discussing the potential of combining forces on a new jointly-issued stablecoin. The talks were said to be in “early, conceptual stages” and would depend on what form of stablecoin legislation ultimately emerges from Congress.
The House and Senate are in recess this week, but that hasn’t stopped the expected flurry of amendments to the GENIUS stablecoin bill currently awaiting debate and a final vote on the Senate floor.
As of Monday, there were 53 proposed amendments to GENIUS, some of them unrelated to digital assets. For instance, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) offered an amendment that would undo the cuts to Medicaid in the ‘big, beautiful’ budget bill passed by the House last week. Senators from both parties are trying to attach the full text of unrelated bills they’ve sponsored, like a bunch of remoras clinging to the side of a shark.
Other proposed amendments have only a distant relation to GENIUS. For instance, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) wants to bolt on the text that would limit emissions from AI data centers and block reward mining facilities.
More germane amendments include one by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) aimed at “preventing cryptocurrency corruption” by presidents, vice-presidents, members of Congress and so forth. Chris Murphy (D-CT) proposed similar language aimed at preventing federal officials from utilizing their positions for “private financial gain.” These amendments are linked to USD1, the stablecoin issued by the Trump-controlled decentralized finance (DeFi) project World Liberty Financial.
Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) wants to prohibit any stablecoin issuer owned by “foreign adversaries” (China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, etc.) from participating in a regulated U.S. market. Josh Hawley (R-MO) seeks to address stablecoin issuers’ protections from legal liability under section 230(c) of the Communications Act of 1934.
It remains to be seen how many (if any) of these amendments will be adopted when the bill comes up for debate on the Senate floor, possibly as early as next week. With momentum on their side, Senate leadership appears keen on passing GENIUS as swiftly as possible, preferably before Trump does or says something to chip away at tepid Democratic support for the measure.
Lummis claims Trump ‘supports’ her BTC reserve act
Trump spoke at the BTC 2024 event in Nashville during his election campaign, making several pledges that he’s gone on to fulfill. These include pardoning Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who will be among the featured speakers at this year’s event in Las Vegas.
Trump won’t be making a repeat appearance in Vegas, but Vice-President J.D. Vance will speak on May 28. It’s unknown whether Vance will announce any official policy developments, but Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) dropped a bit of a bombshell during her session on the conference’s opening day.
For a long time, Lummis has been trying to pass her Bitcoin strategic reserve legislation, which would require the government to purchase up to 1 million BTC tokens, representing nearly 5% of the total supply that will ever exist.
On Tuesday, Lummis said Trump “supports” her bill, but she expects the White House to “probably” press for passage of the stablecoin and market structure bills first before they get to hers. This would be a major development, although it’s unclear whether Trump’s ‘support’ of the Lummis bill means anything beyond what the White House has already articulated on this subject.
Budget neutral magic?
Hopes that the government would spend over $100 billion dollars acquiring additional BTC has been a fever dream for crypto bros, given the expected impact this volume of buying would have on BTC’s fiat price. But the market didn’t appear to be taking Lummis too seriously, with BTC’s value declining even as word of her remarks spread.
Think about it: before announcing any plan that would dramatically boost BTC’s fiat value, it makes sense for Trump to wait until after the Trump-owned TMTG makes good on its pledge to spend $2.5 billion of other people’s money buying BTC. This way, his own bottom line gets to enjoy the boost.
To date, Trump has only committed to not selling the ~200,000 BTC already in the government’s possession. Acquiring additional BTC will only happen if it can be done in a ‘budget neutral’ manner.
On Tuesday, Trump’s AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks told the Vegas audience that it was up to the Commerce and Treasury departments to determine what ‘budget-neutral’ means. “So if we can convince Howard Lutnick, who’s the Commerce Secretary, or Scott Bessent, who’s the Treasury Secretary, to buy some and they can figure out how to fund it—you know, without a new tax or without adding to the debt, maybe finding the money from some other program that’s not using it—then we could potentially acquire more Bitcoin.”
Some reserve proponents have previously argued that revaluing the nation’s gold certificates to their current value—the certificates have been artificially fixed at $42.22 per ounce since 1973, while Tuesday’s market price was $3,300—could ‘find’ hundreds of billions to spend on BTC.
But some Republican senators believe another bit of legislative sleight-of-hand could magically shave trillions off the House’s new budget bill, which could allow additional spending possibilities.
This ‘current policy baseline’ scheme works like this: by extending the tax cuts that Trump passed in 2017 but was set to expire soon, they’re technically not adding more spending, merely continuing to spend what they’re already spending. So, it doesn’t count.
If that premise sounds too crazy for anyone in a position of real authority to take seriously, well, you simply haven’t been paying attention over the last four months.
Watch: Teranode is the digital backbone of Bitcoin
Recommended for you
