Crypto memecoin $TRUMP dinner blurs lines between profit and politics
More than two hundred guests on Thursday will make their way to a ritzy country club just up the Potomac River from Washington, ready for a sumptuous dinner hosted by the president of the United States.The lucky few are not top officials or visiting heads of state but the 220 biggest buyers of $TRUMP, a crypto memecoin launched by the US president in January.The top 25 investors will enjoy even more special access: a private session with Trump before dinner -- which is set at the Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia -- and a White House tour."The most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World," a website dedicated to the event said. "The question is...ARE YOU IN?"This dinner represents perhaps the boldest commercial venture of Trump's presidency, further blurring already hazy boundaries between politics and profit.Launched hours before his January inauguration, the $TRUMP memecoin is only one example of the Trump family's ever-expanding moves into cryptocurrency Much of the crypto industry frowns upon these coins or tokens, fearing they tarnish the sector's credibility, amid reports of quick pump-and-dump schemes that leave unwitting buyers paying for assets that end up worthless.$TRUMP saw a spike in value when it announced the dinner, but reports said that many of the winners of the offer, which closed on May 12, are now selling their memecoins.Critics, including the typically Trump-friendly Wall Street Journal editorial board, point out that Trump and his allies, as the creators of the memecoin, have made $320 million in trading fees, citing Chainalysis, a data analytic firm.They also point out that the dinner allows foreign actors who otherwise can't influence the White House to try to use the memecoin to buy favor with the government.The crypto industry, which massively contributed to his campaign, has welcomed Trump's return to the White House, praising his promise for a clear departure from the skepticism of the previous Democratic administration toward digital currencies.Those years were marked by major scandal, including the collapse of FTX, the crypto giant founded by CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who is now serving a 25-year sentence for committing massive fraud.But the controversy surrounding the dinner is complicating efforts to pass crucial legislation that would provide clearer legal framework in stablecoins, digital assets that are considered safer and more established than more speculative corners of the sector."The American people deserve the unwavering assurance that access to the presidency is not being offered for sale to the highest bidder in exchange for the President's own financial gain," US Senators Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren wrote in a letter to the Office of Government Ethics.Trump, despite previous hostility toward cryptocurrency, has already taken significant steps to reduce regulatory barriers, including an executive order establishing a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" that would maintain government holdings of the world's leading digital currency.However, key Democrats in Congress are blocking other legislative advancements, frustrated by the dinner and other Trump family ventures into cryptocurrency.- Win the 'race' -These expanding connections include investment in Binance, whose founder is seeking a presidential pardon to re-enter the US market.The investment is being made through World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture backed by the Trumps that launched in September and has made major deals in the Middle East.The company founders feature Trump's sons Donald Jr. and Eric alongside Zach Witkoff, son of Trump's diplomatic adviser Steve Witkoff.At an April crypto conference in Dubai, Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff announced that the state-backed Emirati fund MGX would use USD1, their firm's cryptocurrency, to invest $2 billion in Binance.Additionally, American Bitcoin, another venture backed by Trump's eldest sons, recently announced plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange.That company will ride lower energy costs and environmental norms to lower the cost of bitcoin mining in the United States."The US won the space race. We better win the crypto race," Eric Trump recently told CNBC.arp/bfm
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economic Times
8 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Market in consolidation mode; triggers needed, says Sunil Subramaniam
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads "Another reason for pharma's past underperformance is that FIIs were driving the selling pressure. They closely track export-oriented sectors. So the recent post-results bounce in pharma is largely driven by DIIs. FIIs still haven't firmed up their stance on India. They remain a bit cautious, especially because the delay in the BTA (Bilateral Trade Agreement) hasn't helped sentiment," says Sunil Subramaniam , Market like you said, the question is—why were they under pressure in the first place? I'd call it the Trump effect. Mr. Trump has been talking a lot about imposing heavy pharma tariffs. He hasn't actually done anything yet, but every time he makes such statements, it creates nervousness—whether he's targeting CDMO players or generics, and how he plans to go about it. That uncertainty has impacted the pharma sector, putting it under when individual companies are reporting good numbers, the market has no choice but to buy into them—because at least those companies are indicating a positive outlook. Plus, some of them may not even be impacted by tariffs, creating a window of opportunity. Also, the pharma space includes domestic-oriented businesses like hospitals and diagnostics, which are unaffected by U.S. tariff issues. So overall, pharma remains a defensive reason for pharma's past underperformance is that FIIs were driving the selling pressure. They closely track export-oriented sectors. So the recent post-results bounce in pharma is largely driven by DIIs. FIIs still haven't firmed up their stance on India. They remain a bit cautious, especially because the delay in the BTA (Bilateral Trade Agreement) hasn't helped we need to understand the market's movement over the last three months. Post-March, FIIs were actually buyers in April and May, and even in June, though to a lesser extent. Meanwhile, if you look at the end of March, mutual fund DIIs—especially domestic mutual funds—had built up cash positions to around 7.25% of their April and May, both mutual funds and FIIs were buying, which supported the market. But starting this month, mutual fund cash levels are back down to around 5%, which is close to their lower limit. That means DIIs don't have as much cash left to deploy, apart from the fresh SIP looking at last earnings season and market levels, domestic funds have largely deployed their cash. FIIs, on the other hand, had expected some action around the BTA by July 9, which then got pushed to August 1. But now, even that deadline seems unlikely to be met. The Indian trade delegation has returned from the U.S. without a deal. Sticking points remain—like agriculture—and they won't be easy to the question now is whether Trump will extend the 10% tariff pause beyond August 1 or slap a 26% tariff on India and then negotiate, like he did with Japan—imposing higher tariffs first and then signing a deal at 19%. That kind of uncertainty around the India-U.S. BTA is keeping FIIs factor is China. While China and the U.S. haven't signed a full BTA either, they seem to have reached some understanding. Meanwhile, China's markets have been beaten down so much that the one-year forward P/E is around 11—compared to India's 22. And China's economy is about 4.5 times larger than India's. Even at 4% growth, those are big numbers. So FIIs are starting to see more value in China, pulling some attention away from as for your question on the next trigger—clearly, a breakthrough on the BTA front, like an interim deal or assurance that tariffs will be capped below 20%, could bring FIIs back. On the domestic side, it's the ongoing earnings season. Results have been mixed. The IT sector, for instance, didn't post terrible earnings, but weak guidance is weighing heavily, especially in the absence of FII DIIs have already used most of their cash, their incremental buying will depend on the inflow from SIPs and earnings results. So companies with strong earnings and forward guidance will likely get DII if the early festival season gives good signs on the consumption front, that could also be a positive trigger. Until then, expect the market to remain in a sideways, consolidative phase for some time.
Indian Express
8 minutes ago
- Indian Express
The chatbot culture wars are here
For much of the past decade, America's partisan culture warriors have fought over the contested territory of social media — arguing about whether the rules on Facebook and Twitter were too strict or too lenient, whether YouTube and TikTok censored too much or too little and whether Silicon Valley tech companies were systematically silencing right-wing voices. Those battles aren't over. But a new one has already started. This fight is over artificial intelligence, and whether the outputs of leading AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are politically biased. Conservatives have been taking aim at AI companies for months. In March, House Republicans subpoenaed a group of leading AI developers, probing them for information about whether they colluded with the Biden administration to suppress right-wing speech. And this month, Missouri's Republican attorney general, Andrew Bailey, opened an investigation into whether Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI are leading a 'new wave of censorship' by training their AI systems to give biased responses to questions about President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Trump himself joined the fray, issuing an executive order on what he called 'woke AI.' 'Once and for all, we are getting rid of woke,' he said in a speech. 'The American people do not want woke Marxist lunacy in the AI models, and neither do other countries.' The order was announced alongside a new White House AI action plan that will require AI developers that receive federal contracts to ensure that their models' outputs are 'objective and free from top-down ideological bias.' Republicans have been complaining about AI bias since at least early last year, when a version of Google's Gemini AI system generated historically inaccurate images of the American Founding Fathers, depicting them as racially diverse. That incident drew the fury of online conservatives, and led to accusations that leading AI companies were training their models to parrot liberal ideology. Since then, top Republicans have mounted pressure campaigns to try to force AI companies to disclose more information about how their systems are built, and tweak their chatbots' outputs to reflect a broader set of political views. Now, with the White House's executive order, Trump and his allies are using the threat of taking away lucrative federal contracts — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI were recently awarded Defense Department contracts worth as much as $200 million — to try to force AI companies to address their concerns. The order directs federal agencies to limit their use of AI systems to those that put a priority on 'truth-seeking' and 'ideological neutrality' over disfavored concepts such as diversity, equity and inclusion. It also directs the Office of Management and Budget to issue guidance to agencies about which systems meet those criteria. If this playbook sounds familiar, it's because it mirrors the way Republicans have gone after social media companies for years — using legal threats, hostile congressional hearings and cherry-picked examples to pressure companies into changing their policies, or removing content they don't like. Critics of this strategy call it 'jawboning,' and it was the subject of a high-profile Supreme Court case last year. In that case, Murthy v. Missouri, it was Democrats who were accused of pressuring social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to take down posts on topics such as the coronavirus vaccine and election fraud, and Republicans challenging their tactics as unconstitutional. (In a 6-3 decision, the court rejected the challenge, saying the plaintiffs lacked standing.) Now, the parties have switched sides. Republican officials, including several Trump administration officials I spoke to who were involved in the executive order, are arguing that pressuring AI companies through the federal procurement process is necessary to stop AI developers from putting their thumbs on the scale. Is that hypocritical? Sure. But recent history suggests that working the refs this way can be effective. Meta ended its long-standing fact-checking program this year, and YouTube changed its policies in 2023 to allow more election denial content. Critics of both changes viewed them as capitulation to right-wing critics. This time around, the critics cite examples of AI chatbots that seemingly refuse to praise Trump, even when prompted to do so, or Chinese-made chatbots that refuse to answer questions about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. They believe developers are deliberately baking a left-wing worldview into their models, one that will be dangerously amplified as AI is integrated into fields such as education and health care. There are a few problems with this argument, according to legal and tech policy experts I spoke to. The first, and most glaring, is that pressuring AI companies to change their chatbots' outputs may violate the First Amendment. In recent cases like Moody v. NetChoice, the Supreme Court has upheld the rights of social media companies to enforce their own content moderation policies. And courts may reject the Trump administration's argument that it is trying to enforce a neutral standard for government contractors, rather than interfering with protected speech. 'What it seems like they're doing is saying, 'If you're producing outputs we don't like, that we call biased, we're not going to give you federal funding that you would otherwise receive,'' Genevieve Lakier, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said. 'That seems like an unconstitutional act of jawboning.' There is also the problem of defining what, exactly, a 'neutral' or 'unbiased' AI system is. Today's AI chatbots are complex, probability-based systems that are trained to make predictions, not give hard-coded answers. Two ChatGPT users may see wildly different responses to the same prompts, depending on variables like their chat histories and which versions of the model they're using. And testing an AI system for bias isn't as simple as feeding it a list of questions about politics and seeing how it responds. Samir Jain, a vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit civil liberties group, said the Trump administration's executive order would set 'a really vague standard that's going to be impossible for providers to meet.' There is also a technical problem with telling AI systems how to behave. Namely, they don't always listen. Just ask Elon Musk. For years, Musk has been trying to create an AI chatbot, Grok, that embodies his vision of a rebellious, 'anti-woke' truth seeker. But Grok's behavior has been erratic and unpredictable. At times, it adopts an edgy, far-right personality, or spouts antisemitic language in response to user prompts. (For a brief period last week, it referred to itself as 'Mecha-Hitler.') At other times, it acts like a liberal — telling users, for example, that human-made climate change is real, or that the right is responsible for more political violence than the left. Recently, Musk has lamented that AI systems have a liberal bias that is 'tough to remove, because there is so much woke content on the internet.' Nathan Lambert, a research scientist at the Allen Institute for AI, told me that 'controlling the many subtle answers that an AI will give when pressed is a leading-edge technical problem, often governed in practice by messy interactions made between a few earlier decisions.' It's not, in other words, as straightforward as telling an AI chatbot to be less woke. And while there are relatively simple tweaks that developers could make to their chatbots — such as changing the 'model spec,' a set of instructions given to AI models about how they should act — there's no guarantee that these changes will consistently produce the behavior conservatives want. But asking whether the Trump administration's new rules can survive legal challenges, or whether AI developers can actually build chatbots that comply with them, may be beside the point. These campaigns are designed to intimidate. And faced with the potential loss of lucrative government contracts, AI companies, like their social media predecessors, may find it easier to give in than to fight. 'Even if the executive order violates the First Amendment, it may very well be the case that no one challenges it,' Lakier said. 'I'm surprised by how easily these powerful companies have folded.'
Indian Express
8 minutes ago
- Indian Express
Who is eligible for US visa interview waiver? Key changes, additional criteria — all you need to know
The US Department of State has unveiled significant changes to its visa interview waiver policy, effective September 2. This would include all non-immigrant visa applicants, including those under the age of 14 and over 79 years, to attend an in-person interview with a consular officer. The non-immigrant visa categories include tourist and business visas (B-1/B-2), student visas (F and M), work visas (H-1B), and exchange visas (J). Diplomatic visas fall under categories A and G. The latest update on July 25, which aims to enhance security, has raised concerns among H-1B visa holders and other nonimmigrant visa categories about increased waiting time and processing delays. All nonimmigrant visa applicants, including applicants under the age of 14 and over the age of 79, will generally require an in-person interview with a consular officer, except for the following categories: To qualify for an interview waiver, applicants must: The US Citizenship and Immigration Services emphasised that even with potential interview waivers, consular officers retained the discretion to interview the applicant on a case-by-case basis for any reason. This supersedes the Interview Waiver Update of February 18, 2025. 'Consular officers may still require in-person interviews on a case-by-case basis for any reason. Applicants should check embassy and consulate websites for more detailed information about visa application requirements and procedures, and to learn more about the embassy or consulate's operating status and services,' the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said in its release. Earlier this month, the US also introduced a new $250 Visa Integrity Fee, which takes effect in 2026. Designed as a form of security deposit, the fee is pegged to inflation and may be refunded if visa holders meet specific compliance criteria. This is part of Trump's sweeping immigration overhaul, under the recently signed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted on July 4.
