It seems like a triumph for a cryptocurrency industry that has long sought mainstream acceptance: Top investors in one of President Donald Trump ’s crypto projects invited to dine with him at his luxury golf club in Northern Virginia on the heels of the Senate advancing key pro-crypto legislation and while bitcoin prices soar. But Thursday night’s dinner for the 220 biggest investors in the $TRUMP meme coin has raised uncomfortable questions about potentially shadowy buyers using the anonymity of the internet to buy access to the president. While Democrats charge that Trump is using the power of the presidency to boost profits for his family business, even some pro-Trump crypto enthusiasts worry that the president’s push into meme coins isn’t helping their efforts to establish the credibility, stability and legitimacy they had thought his administration would bring to their businesses. After feeling unfairly targeted by the Biden administration, the industry has quickly become a dominant political force, donating huge sums to help Trump and crypto-friendly lawmakers. But that’s also served to tether the industry — sometimes uncomfortably — to a president who is using crypto as a platform to make money for his brand in unprecedented ways. “It’s distasteful and an unnecessary distraction,” said Nic Carter, a Trump supporter and partner at the crypto investment firm Castle Island Ventures, who said the president is “hugging us to death” with his private crypto businesses. “We would much rather that he passes common-sense legislation and leave it at that.” Concerns about Trump’s crypto ventures predate Inauguration Day At the swanky Crypto Ball held down the street from the White House three days before he took office on Jan. 20, Trump announced the creation of the meme coin $TRUMP as a way for his supporters to “have fun.” Meme coins are the crypto sector’s black sheep. They are often created as a joke, with no real utility and prone to extremely wild price swings that tend to enrich a small group of insiders at the expense of less sophisticated investors. The president’s meme coin is different, however, and has a clear utility: access to Trump. The top 25 investors of $TRUMP are set to attend a private reception with the president Thursday, with the top four getting $100,000 crypto-themed and Trump-branded watches. Trump’s meme coin saw an initial spike in value, followed by a steep drop. The price saw a significant increase after the dinner contest was announced. Its creators, which include an entity controlled by the Trump Organization, have made hundreds of millions of dollars by collecting fees on trades. First lady Melania Trump has her own meme coin, and Trump’s sons, Eric and Don Jr. — who are running the Trump Organization while their father is president — announced they are partnering with an existing firm to create a crypto mining company. The Trump family also holds about a 60% stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto project that provides yet another avenue where investors are buying in and enriching the president’s relatives. World Liberty has launched its own stablecoin, USD1. The project got a boost recently when World Liberty announced an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 to purchase a stake in Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. A rapidly growing form of crypto, stablecoins have values pegged to fixed assets like the […]