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Short thoughts, notes, links, and musings by Molly White. RSS

A couple people responded to my earlier post about the shoddy WSJ article to say “well it’s true that Democrats aren’t supporting the protests!”

At my best count, 80 elected Democrats (Congresspeople, governors) attended protests today. Another 25 encouraged people to go.

Spreadsheet listing all Democratic (and Independent) governors, Senators, and Representatives, and checkboxes showing whether they endorsed or attended protests

That’s just looking at today’s protests, not Democrats talking about or attending protests more generally. It also doesn’t count the many more state or local officials who showed up, candidates, etc.

The TrumpWallet.com website, which was previously hosting a waitlist sign-up for the Trump wallet project, has just gone offline.

This is less than an hour after Bloomberg reported that the World Liberty Financial project sent a cease and desist to both the memecoin project and Magic Eden.

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

GENIUS Act stablecoin bill stalls in the Senate

The GENIUS Act stablecoin bill has stalled in the Senate with key Democrats — including some of its early co-sponsors — voting against it. Democratic opposition increased after Trump’s World Liberty Financial cryptocurrency platform released its own stablecoin, allowing the president to profit from transactions including a $2 billion deal between the Emirati state-owned investment firm and the Binance crypto platform.

Senators who voted against the bill include Ruben Gallego (AZ), Mark Warner (VA), Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE), Andy Kim (NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), and Angela Alsobrooks (MD). Gallego was one of the top recipients of crypto industry campaign funds in 2024, receiving $10 million in crypto super PAC backing.

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.

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.

always a little weird to see in politicians' footnotes

URL fragment containing utm_source=chatgpt.com

Someone just spent $8 million on $TRUMP memecoins after the president announced that the top holders would be invited to join him at a private dinner at his DC golf club.

Solscan screenshot showing four purchases of a total of 655K TRUMP tokens for approximately $8 million

The purchases were funded by a Binance account, suggesting the wallet owner is not based in the US.

The House Financial Services Republicans and the White House (now deleted) tagged either a hacked or fake account in their announcements that Paul Atkins was sworn in as SEC Chair. The "Atkins" account immediately started asking for crypto.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins sworn in

Meet our new SEC Chair, Paul Atkins. Who better for the role than a Project 2025 architect who blamed the FTX fraud on the US not being "accommodating" to blockchain technology?

@molly0xfff Who better to regulate financial markets than Paul Atkins, a Project 2025 architect who blamed the FTX fraud on the US not being "accommodating" to blockchain technology? #sec #trumpadministration #project2025 #paulatkins ♬ original sound - Molly White

Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group has just asked the US Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate and potentially pursue civil and criminal action against a short seller

To: Mark Uyeda, Acting Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
From: Trump Media & Technology Group

Date: April 17, 2025
Subject: Potential Illegal Naked Short Selling and Market Manipulation of DJT Stock

CC: Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA); Nasdaq; New York Stock Exchange

This letter serves to inform you of suspicious activity related to a disclosure filed in Germany by the U.K.-based hedge fund Qube Research & Technologies ("Qube"). The following data points raise critical questions about the timing and methods used in Qube's trading activities:

On April 10, 2025, Qube disclosed a nearly six-million share short position in Trump Media & Technology Group Corp ("TMTG") (NASDAQ, NYSE Texas: DJT). Thus, a U.K.-based entity, with a data center in Iceland, only disclosed these short sales in Germany.
According to Nasdaq, the total short interest in DJT as of March 31, 2025, was 10.7 million shares (see attached chart). Third party sources inform TMTG that the total short interest as of April 16, 2025, is virtually unchanged-approximately 11 million shares.
Neither Nasdaq, NYSE Texas, nor any other source has been able to confirm when the trades disclosed by Qube were conducted or if they were conducted at all.
The above factors, especially when combined with the history of suspicious trading surrounding DJT stock-including DJT appearing on Nasdaq's Regulation SHO Threshold Security List continuously for more than two months in 2024-could be indications of the illegal naked short selling of DJT shares.

We urge you to immediately investigate this suspicious trading and report your findings back to TMTG and any relevant civil and criminal authorities. American equities exchanges should be operated with full transparency and maximum efficiency, not as an opaque free-for-all reminiscent of a third-world casino.

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