Thoughts tagged "corruption"

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Representative Raskin cited my analysis in his letter investigating Trump’s memecoin dinner

A close analysis of the top buyers on the “leaderboard” on the website of $TRUMP shows that a majority of the attendees appear to be foreign nationals who purchased the token through offshore cryptocurrency exchanges that prohibit U.S. customers from participating. 15 Analysis reveals that 161 of the 220 top buyers, or 73% of the invitees, are likely foreign nationals. Among the top 25 “VIP” guests who were offered additional private access to you, including a “VIP White House tour” 16—and who each spent between $1.25 million and $16 million on $TRUMP tokens—23 out of 25 are likely foreign individuals or entities.17 A majority of those on the guest list had never purchased a $TRUMP token prior to the announcement of the dinner, suggesting that the buyers were primarily drawn by the promise of direct access to you rather than intrinsic interest in the memecoin itself.18
14 Trump Meme, $TRUMP Leaderboard (May 5, 2025), https://trumpdinner.gettrumpmemes.com/leaderboard. 15 Molly White, Meet Trump’s Memecoin Dinner Guests, CITATION NEEDED: A NEWSLETTER BY MOLLY WHITE (May 7, 2025), https://www.citationneeded.news/trump-memecoin-dinner-guests/. 16 Olivia Rubin and Lucien Bruggeman, Trump's Top Meme Coin Investors Visit White House, ABC NEWS (May 23, 2025), https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-top-meme-coin-investors-invited-whitehouse/story?id=122128541. 17 Eric Lipton, The Trumps Get Richer, N.Y. TIMES (May 14, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/briefing/trump-family-business.html. 18 Molly White, Meet Trump’s Memecoin Dinner Guests, CITATION NEEDED: A NEWSLETTER BY MOLLY WHITE (May 7, 2025), https://www.citationneeded.news/trump-memecoin-dinner-guests/.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland demanded that President Trump turn over the names of the guests at the White House dinner for top investors in his meme coin.

A trader bought 6,000 $TRUMP on April 21, two days before the announcement that top holders would be invited to dinner with the president. They sold it a few hours after the announcement two days later caused the token price to go up, earning $33k on the trade. Impressive timing!

Solscan screenshot showing the trader purchased 6,041.52 TRUMP for $51,051.35 in USDT on April 21
Solscan screenshot showing the trader sold 6,041.52 TRUMP for $84,087.42 in USDT on April 21

They had traded the Trump token a bit for the first few days after it launched in January, then apparently lost interest until suddenly rediscovering it on April 21.

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At the moment they still hold 9,130 TRUMP, so as of now they’ll be joining Trump at the dinner in a few weeks.

They regularly transfer funds from Bybit, suggesting they are not based in the US.