A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange apologised on Saturday after mistakenly transferring more than $40 billion worth of bitcoin to users, which briefly prompted a selloff on the platform.
Bithumb said it accidentally sent 620,000 bitcoins, currently worth more than $40 billion, and blocked trading and withdrawals for the 695 affected users within 35 minutes after the error occurred on Friday.
According to local reports, Bithumb was meant to send about 2,000 won ($1.37) to each customer as part of a promotion, but mistakenly transferred roughly 2,000 bitcoins per user.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused to our customers due to the confusion that occurred during the distribution process of this (promotional) event,” Bithumb said in a statement released Saturday.
The platform said it had recovered 99.7 percent of the mistakenly sent bitcoins, and that it would use its own assets to fully cover the amount that was lost in the incident.
It admitted the error briefly caused “sharp volatility” in bitcoin prices on the platform as some recipients sold the tokens, adding that it brought the situation under control within five minutes.
Its charts showed the token’s prices briefly went down 17 percent to 81.1 million won on the platform late Friday.
The platform stressed that the incident was “unrelated to external hacking or security breaches”.
Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, sank this week, wiping out gains sparked by US President Donald Trump’s presidential election victory in November 2024.
Bitcoin just suffered its largest weekly decline in more than three years. But the worst part for some of crypto’s permabulls is that they aren’t sure what exactly caused the crash.
The selloff left many of the market’s luminaries—those so well-known that they go simply as “Pomp” and “Novo” and “Mooch”—searching for answers.
“Bitcoin is crashing and investors are freaking out,” Anthony Pompliano, a crypto evangelist and investor, wrote Friday.
Bitcoin fell 16% to $70,008 this past week, down a sharp 45% from its all-time high of $126,273 in October. Ether dropped 24% to $2,052, off 59% from its own high of last year. Both tokens staged furious rallies Friday, but the week remained a historically bad one for crypto. And few seem to know what went wrong.
Market theories for the selloff ranged from investors’ pivot toward the prediction markets and other risky bets, to widespread profit-taking after a blistering bull run.
Price performance, past two years
Price performance, past two years
Trump’s surprise announcement of
100% tariffs against China
Source: The NY Budgets Crypto Index
“There was no smoking gun,” said Michael Novogratz, who runs Galaxy Digital, a crypto merchant-banking and trading firm.
For much of last year, crypto was in ascendance. President Trump’s return to the White House ushered in a new era for digital assets, which continued to gain acceptance among individual investors and legitimacy on Wall Street. As bitcoin and other popular tokens touched record highs, it seemed as though the market’s best days always lay ahead.
“I really didn’t think that we’d see a six at the beginning of the bitcoin price ever again,” said Cory Klippsten, chief executive officer of the bitcoin financial services firm Swan Bitcoin.
And yet, for a 24-hour stretch that ended Friday afternoon, bitcoin was back at that level. Past crypto selloffs had clearer explanations, which made this one more mystifying.
In 2018, bitcoin fell 80% from its peak after the initial coin offering bubble burst, ending an era in which thousands of unproven startups raised billions of dollars with little more than a sales pitch. In 2022, the $40 billion collapse of TerraUSD and Luna coins triggered a cascade of company failures across the crypto sector that culminated in the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange.
Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/Getty Images
This time, there is no clear consensus. “If you ask five experts, you’ll get five explanations,” said Anthony Scaramucci, who served for 11 days as communications director during Trump’s first term and is among the best-known crypto bulls at his firm, SkyBridge Capital.
Here are some of the most popular explanations:
New shiny objects
There is no shortage of other markets for traders to make audacious bets, said Pompliano, the CEO of ProCap Financial. Prediction markets, gold, silver, artificial intelligence and so-called meme stocks are all vying for their attention of late, drawing eyes away from crypto.
“It used to be that bitcoin was the consensus view where asymmetry existed,” Pompliano said. “Now you have AI, prediction markets…many other areas where people can go and they can speculate.”
More supply?
Wall Street has sought to capitalize on crypto’s popularity by launching a growing array of exchange-traded funds and derivatives linked to bitcoin and other popular tokens. Their proliferation might not affect the sheer number of bitcoins, ethers and other tokens, but some investors thought their arrival has dented bitcoin’s appeal as a scarce asset.
Bitcoin’s main appeal has always been its limited supply of 21 million coins. By launching ETFs and complex derivatives, Wall Street has enabled investors to bet on the price of bitcoin without needing to buy or hold the actual coins, some analysts said.
New sheriff
Other investors suspected that Kevin Warsh, Trump’s pick to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve, might be bringing down crypto prices.
Warsh, they said, is seen as more hawkish on interest rates as a tool to tame inflation, and more supportive of a stronger U.S. dollar. Higher rates and a stronger dollar are conditions that typically hurt some alternative assets, such as gold and crypto, making them less attractive to investors. And this past week, the WSJ Dollar Index edged up 0.4%.
Still, Warsh and the Fed are expected to cut rates this year, not raise them. And Warsh has warmed to bitcoin. He famously dubbed the digital currency a “policeman for policy,” saying in a TV interview that bitcoin’s price can inform policymakers when they are doing things right and wrong.
Clouded clarity
After Trump signed into law the Genius Act last year, paving the path for stablecoins—digital assets pegged to fiat currencies like the dollar—the industry turned its attention to the next important piece of legislation: the Clarity Act. This bill would create a clear regulatory framework for the burgeoning industry.
Congress appeared on the cusp of moving the bill ahead when a dispute between crypto exchanges and traditional banks stalled that momentum. Without this measure, many financial firms are hesitant to integrate digital assets into their offerings. And unless a compromise is reached, the dust-up might deny the crypto market a catalyst that could have extended the rally.
Profit-taking
Novogratz and some other investors thought much of the selloff was driven by investors eager to lock in gains they collected when bitcoin, ether and other digital tokens rallied in the midst of the “euphoria” of Trump’s election in 2024 and pledge to make the U.S. the world’s crypto capital.
And those gains were indeed spectacular. Bitcoin, for one, rocketed around 80% from Election Day until early October of last year.
Sharp selloffs are hardly unusual in crypto, of course. They are so regular, in fact, that investors give them a name—crypto winter—that befits the belief that these downturns are as predictable as the seasons.
Some analysts believe this crypto winter could thaw faster than those of the past. No key companies have collapsed or faced allegations, revelations that have elicited crises of confidence in past crashes.
For believers, Friday’s rally served as reassurance that cryptocurrencies have always bounced back, part of why they stick with these investments.
“The infrastructure is stronger, stablecoin adoption continues to grow and institutional interest hasn’t evaporated, it’s just sidelined,” said Jasper De Maere, a strategist at the crypto trading firm Wintermute. Interest in these investments “can return quickly,” he said.
Many of crypto’s true believers are willing to wait.
On a Thursday afternoon conference call, Strategy founder Michael Saylor sought to reassure investors that bitcoin was coming back.
Republicans are way ahead of Democrats regarding their opinion of crypto and bitcoin, said MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor. (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)
Moments earlier, his company, which stockpiles bitcoin, had reported a $12 billion quarterly loss related to the token’s late-2025 swoon. Saylor told his investors the only way to handle the downturn is to hold on—and tune out the market’s volatility.
“Your time horizon needs to be, minimal, four years,” Saylor said.
The crypto industry notched a major victory on Thursday, securing legislation that could lead to digital assets becoming a significant part of Americans’ everyday lives. But delays in enacting the bill shows the industry’s power still has limits.
On Thursday afternoon, the House of Representatives in a 308-122 vote passed a bill that would set rules for so-called stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency whose value is most often pegged to the dollar and backed by reserves. The Senate already passed the bill in June, and the White House on Thursday said President Donald Trump will sign it into law as soon as Friday.
The bill, called the Genius Act, has been a longstanding target for stablecoin company Circle Internet Group and crypto trading platform Coinbase Global. Its passage is the culmination of a multiyear effort to lobby lawmakers over to crypto’s cause—and to finance the campaigns of others who promised to support the industry.
Crypto supporters largely agree that the bills considered by Congress could transform the sector and allow for more investments, especially from institutions.
The crypto industry still has much it wants to accomplish even after Thursday’s expected victory. High on crypto boosters’ wish list is legislation to establish rulesfor crypto exchanges, brokers and tokens. But it will be more difficult for the industry to build the coalition it needs to push through that larger agenda.
On Thursday, the House also passed a bill on a 294-134 vote to establish those other rules. Seventy-eight Democrats voted in favor of the bill, more than the 71 Democrats who voted in favor of a separate bill to create crypto rules last year.
Unlike the stablecoin bill, the Senate has yet to vote on market-structure legislation.
The Senate seems a long ways away from building the bipartisan support needed to avoid a filibuster and move it into law, wrote TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg in a research note this week.
“Passing this bill is symbolically important, but what will matter is the language that the Senate can pass,” Seiberg said.
Seiberg said he doesn’t expect to get full details on what the Senate plans until late this year or early next year.
Part of the hangup is that while several senators for years have pushed digital-assets tied legislation, the Senate and its committees as a whole haven’t done nearly as much work building a consensus as their counterparts in the House. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), who chaired the Senate Banking Committee, was a crypto skeptic, and he and other progressive Democrats largely froze bills moving forward even as the Republican-led House forged ahead.
The second hang-up is substantive. Some Democratic senators, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), have argued that the crypto bills would let the industry run roughshod over
investor protection laws and leave enforcement to undermanned agencies like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission not used to policing a large industry. They say that current investor laws that pertain to securities are already good enough.
Not helping matters is Trump’s own crypto ventures. The stablecoin bill itself almost faltered in the Senate after Democrats expressed concerns that it didn’t prohibit Trump or other government officials from profiting from the coins.
The Trump family owns an interest in crypto firm World Liberty Financial. Its token sales generated more than $57 million for the president, according to anethics disclosure, and the firm this year launched its own stablecoin. Some Democrats will no doubt push for restrictions on Trump profiting off crypto in a new bill.
Grayscale urges U.S. investors to push for spot bitcoin ETF. (Bloomberg)
Bitcoin has once again shattered expectations, surging to an all-time high of $118,872.85 early Friday morning as institutional investors piled into cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) at a record pace. The flagship digital asset was last trading around $117,955.25, up nearly 4% on the day, according to Coin Metrics.
The rally, which reignited after Wednesday’s Federal Reserve minutes hinted at potential shifts in monetary policy, marks the first new record for bitcoin since May 22 and adds further momentum to what has already been a historic year for digital assets.
The spark behind the latest rally came from Thursday’s ETF data, which showed $1.18 billion in net inflows into Bitcoin ETFs — the largest single-day total of 2025, according to data from SoSoValue. Simultaneously, Ether ETFs pulled in $383.1 million, their second-highest day of inflows ever.
“This is a clear sign that institutional confidence in crypto is accelerating,” said Markus Thielen, CEO of 10x Research. “Bitcoin’s surge is being driven not by retail hype, but by professional money managers allocating large sums via regulated vehicles.”
Thielen also noted that incoming monetary policy decisions — especially the potential departure of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — have encouraged investors to lean bullish. “It’s expected that whoever leads the Fed next will be more dovish,” he said, referring to recent Trump administration hints about Powell’s job security.
Traders are increasingly pricing in the possibility of a rate cut later this year. The minutes from the Fed’s latest meeting showed a split among policymakers, with some leaning toward easing rates to support economic growth, especially amid rising concerns over the ballooning federal deficit.
The proposed "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" — a large-scale fiscal stimulus plan expected to further expand the deficit — is seen by crypto bulls as a tailwind for bitcoin, which many view as a hedge against fiat currency debasement.
“There’s a structural macro narrative that supports bitcoin here,” Thielen said. “As the budget deficit expands and dovish policies gain favor, it strengthens the case for bitcoin as a hard asset.”
Adding fuel to the fire, the sharp rally triggered a massive short squeeze. Over the past 24 hours, $550 million in bitcoin short positions were liquidated, alongside $195 million in ether shorts, according to data from Coinglass.
When short-sellers are forced to cover their positions, they must buy back the asset — in this case, bitcoin — contributing to rapid price spikes.
“This is classic momentum-driven covering,” said a senior derivatives analyst at a Wall Street crypto trading desk. “Once key resistance broke above $114K, it triggered automated liquidations that catapulted us into price discovery territory.”
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, also joined the party, surging 6% on the day and over 21% on the week, reclaiming the $3,000 level for the first time since February.
“Institutions are not only rotating into bitcoin,” said the analyst. “They’re using ETFs to diversify into the Ethereum ecosystem as regulatory clarity improves and Ethereum’s role in financial infrastructure becomes more widely accepted.”
While bitcoin is on pace for a nearly 10% weekly gain, its best week since late April, some traders are urging caution ahead of a typically quiet summer period.
“Macro events tend to slow down during the summer,” Thielen noted. “Long-only equity investors also start de-risking around this time, so momentum might stall unless we get a major catalyst.”
That catalyst could come at the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting at the end of July, where markets will be looking for signs of a dovish pivot or confirmation of Powell’s future.
Since April 17, when ETF inflows began to sharply accelerate — coinciding with Trump’s public questioning of Powell’s leadership — total inflows into bitcoin ETFs have reached nearly $16 billion, underscoring the scale of institutional participation.
Crypto prices, including bitcoin, rose on Tuesday after President Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
By midday Tuesday, bitcoin had passed the $105,000 level, ether jumped back above the $2,400 mark, and XRP climbed to $2.19.
The risk-on action in the markets, which also saw stocks rally on the Mideast de-escalation, wasn’t the only source of momentum, as Republican senators unveiled a major bill to set the rules of the road for crypto. Specifically, the legislation would define when crypto is a commodity or a security, allow crypto exchanges to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and reduce the Securities and Exchange Commission’s regulation of digital assets — a big reversal from the plans of President Biden’s SEC Chair Gary Gensler to closely regulate the crypto industry.
The new framework was introduced by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott of South Carolina and Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who heads the panel’s Digital Assets Committee. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the regulatory development was important for the U.S. to regain the lead in the crypto industry, where he said it has fallen behind other markets, including Europe.
Last week, the senate passed a stablecoin bill, marking the first major legislative win for the crypto industry, which now heads to the House for consideration of its version of the bill. Both bills prohibit yield-bearing consumer stablecoins — but differ on agency regulatory oversight. Visa CEO Ryan McInerney weighed in on the advancement of the Senate version, the Genius Act, telling CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that the credit card giant has been embracing stablecoins.
Meanwhile, investors increased their bets on crypto company Digital Asset, which raised $135 million in funding from several big names in banking and finance, including Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas and hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities. The firm, which touts itself as a regulated crypto player, said it will use the funding to advance adoption of its Canton network, which is a blockchain for financial institutions, another sign of how major financial institutions are embedding themselves into the once obscure crypto world.
The price of President Donald Trump’s meme coin plunged 16% as of Friday morning, just hours after he hosted a black-tie gala at his Virginia golf club for its biggest buyers — an elite crowd that spent a combined $148 million on the token for the chance to be there.
It was billed as “the most exclusive invitation in the world.”
Among the 220 attendees were crypto influencers, industry executives such as Sandy Carter of Unstoppable Domains, and former NBA star Lamar Odom, who used the occasion to praise Trump as “the greatest president” and promote his own token, $ODOM.
The top 25 wallets were promised a private reception and guided tour. Others, such as 25-year-old Nicholas Pinto — whose dad drove him to the event in his Lamborghini — left underwhelmed and still hungry.
“The food sucked,” Pinto said. “Wasn’t given any drinks other than water or Trump’s wine. I don’t drink, so I had water. My glass was only filled once.”
Trump made only a brief appearance, Pinto said. “He didn’t talk to any of the 220 guests — maybe the top 25,” he said.
All in, the president was there for 23 minutes, Pinto said. Trump delivered a brief address rehashing old crypto talking points then left on a helicopter before taking any questions or pictures with his meme coin contest winners, he said.
Phones weren’t locked in RFID pouches, and security was lax, according to Pinto.
“Once Trump left, they didn’t really worry about anything else,” Pinto added.
Contest winners who spent the most on $TRUMP meme coins added their signatures to a poster-sized printout of the leaderboard at a gala dinner at Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia, May 22, 2025. (Nicholas Pinto)
The crowd’s opulence was on full display.
“Richard Mille watches weren’t even rare,” Pinto said. “I saw at least 16 people wearing them. I never see that unless I’m at a high-end restaurant in Miami or Dubai.”
But the vibe was more muted than expected, he said: “Lots of people didn’t even hold the coin anymore. They were checking their phones during dinner to see if the price moved.”
The Budgets has reached out to Trump representatives for comment on the dinner and attendees.
Protests
For lawmakers and regulators, the dinner set off alarm bells.
The #1 token holder was Chinese-born crypto mogul Justin Sun, who is currently facing Securities and Exchange Commission fraud charges that were recently paused, with the agency citing “the public interest.”
Sun holds over $22 million in the $TRUMP token and another $75 million in World Liberty Financial’s native token.
“As the top holder of $TRUMP and proud supporter of President Trump, it was an honor to attend the Trump Gala Dinner,” Sun posted on Friday. “Thank you @POTUS for your unwavering support of our industry!”
Outside the gates of Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia, about a hundred protesters gathered, according to NBC News. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., joined them, backing a new End Crypto Corruption Act with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Signs read “Crypto Corruption” and “Trump is a traitor.”
Crypto on Capitol Hill
“The Trump family activity in the memecoin space makes my work in Congress more complicated,” Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., told CNBC News on Friday.
Hill, who’s leading negotiations on a bipartisan stablecoin regulation bill known as the GENIUS Act, called the gala “a distraction from the good work we need to do.”
Now, the GENIUS Act is at risk.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., recently added a controversial rider to the bill that would cap credit card late fees — what’s seen as a poison pill that could alienate banking allies and stall final approval.
President Donald Trump speaks at a dinner for meme coin contest winners at Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia, May 22, 2025. (Nicholas Pinto)
On Thursday night as the meme coin contest dinner was underway, a bloc of Senate Democrats announced they’d be pushing for a new provision that would ban presidents and senior officials from profiting off crypto ventures while in office — a direct challenge to the Trump-linked stablecoin USD1 that launched in the spring.
In Washington, there’s growing concern that political infighting over Trump’s crypto ventures could derail the stablecoin bill altogether. That poses an even bigger risk.
According to The Wall Street Journal, major banks including JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi are in early talks to issue a unified digital dollar to compete with Tether, the foreign-controlled stablecoin that now commands over 60% of global market share.
Those plans hinge on legal clarity.
If the GENIUS Act stalls, the U.S. could lose its window to regain ground in the global race for digital payments.
The White House has tried to draw a line between Trump the president and Trump the private businessman.
“The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters when pressed on attendee transparency.
The administration declined to release a guest list. But blockchain data — and a patchwork of guest photos — tell part of the story.
A Bloomberg News analysis found that all but six of the top 25 wallets used foreign exchanges, ostensibly off-limits to U.S. users. More than half of the top 220 wallets were linked to similar offshore platforms.
One Nasdaq-listed penny stock, Freight Technologies, disclosed in an SEC filing that it spent $2 million on Trump’s token to push U.S.-Mexico trade policy. It didn’t make the cut for the dinner — finishing 250th.
Since its January debut, the $TRUMP coin has generated more than $324 million in trading fees. Roughly 80% of the $TRUMP token supply is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliates, according to the project’s website.
WLFI, the Trump’s parallel token, has sold $550 million in two token sales.
Still, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks remained bullish on “significant bipartisan support” for stablecoin legislation.
“We already have over $200 billion in stablecoins — it’s just unregulated,” Sacks told CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime” on Wednesday. “If we provide the legal clarity and legal framework for this, I think we could create trillions of dollars of demand for our Treasurys practically overnight, very quickly.”
“We have every expectation now that it’s going to pass,” added Sacks, though he didn’t answer a question about concerns from Democrats that there aren’t sufficient safeguards in place to keep the president and his family from profiting from legislation.
The Trumps are financial backers of World Liberty Financial, which is behind the USD1 stablecoin that is backed by Treasurys and dollar deposits.
Abu Dhabi’s MGX investment fund recently pledged $2 billion in USD1 to Binance, the world’s largest digital assets exchange. It’s the company’s largest-ever investment made in crypto.
Hong Kong passed a stablecoin bill on Wednesday to expand its cryptocurrency licensing regime as more governments recognize the digital asset.
Unlike volatile digital assets like bitcoin, the value of stablecoins is tied to a real-world asset like fiat currencies or commodities like gold.
The new law — focused on fiat-referenced stablecoins — will require stablecoin issuers to obtain a license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and comply with a range of requirements, including proper management of asset reserves and segregation of client assets.
It will “enhance Hong Kong’s existing regulatory framework on virtual-asset (VA) activities, thereby fostering financial stability and encouraging financial innovation,” the central banking body said. It added that it would conduct further consultations on the detailed regulatory framework.
The Hong Kong government said in a statement that the stablecoins policy is expected to come into effect this year, with “sufficient time” allowed for the industry to understand the requirements.
In 2023, Hong Kong introduced its virtual asset licensing regime, which requires cryptocurrency firms with an official presence in the city to apply for licenses and meet specific standards and requirements to offer digital assets to retail investors in the city. However, the existing policy did not include stablecoins in its purview.
“Hong Kong’s new stablecoin policy sets a global benchmark by mandating full reserve backing, strict redemption guarantees, and HKMA oversight,” YeFeng Gong, risk and strategy director of HashKey OTC, told CNBC. HashKey OTC is a trading arm of the HashKey Group, which has a licensed crypto platform in Hong Kong.
The policy “ensures institutional-grade reliability for traders while positioning Hong Kong as a leader in compliant digital finance,” he added.
Crypto adoption and legitimacy
The move from Hong Kong comes just days after the U.S. Senate advanced the GENIUS Act, which would establish the first regulatory framework for issuers of stablecoins if implemented.
A push to regulate stablecoins has been intensifying globally, with other jurisdictions having also implemented their own regulatory frameworks, including the European Union, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Japan, blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis said in a report on Wednesday.
Chengyi Ong, head of Asia-Pacific policy at Chainalysis, told CNBC that the latest regulations are expected to help with crypto adoption and legitimacy.
″[Stablecoins]form the backbone of the crypto ecosystem, but their stability also opens the door to their use in overcoming frictions dogging traditional finance, such as slow cross-border payments and settlement,” Ong said.
“This potentially transformative utility is what has driven governments around the world, from Europe to Asia, to take steps toward regulatory regimes that will facilitate the emergence of high-quality stablecoins,” she added.
According to Chainalysis, the total market cap of stablecoins is around $232 billion as of this month.
For weeks, wealthy individuals have been scooping up the Trump family’s cryptocurrency in hopes of amassing enough to qualify for one of 220 seats at a dinner with President Donald Trump himself. In the words of Trump’s own website: “The competition is fierce. Own $TRUMP—or watch from the sidelines.” Now, the leaderboard is final and the winners from around the world are set to descend on Washington, D.C., to rub shoulders with the world’s most powerful man. So, who is going?
While the leaderboard is public, the identity of each winner—obscured by pseudonymous blockchain addresses—is not. But an analysis by Fortune revealed that 18 out of these top 25 holders have interacted with Binance, a foreign crypto exchange that excludes Americans, meaning they are likely foreign nationals.
Meanwhile, some of the winners—the top 25 of whom are entitled to attend an “ultra-exclusive private VIP Reception”—have publicly identified themselves or been identified by a crypto analytics firm. Here are three guests slated to go to the “Gala Dinner,” which critics have lambasted as an unprecedented example of corruption.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun
With more than $18 million in Trump’s memecoin, according to Monday prices, the top spot on the leaderboard is identified simply by the name “SUN.” The crypto analytics firms Arkham Intelligence and Nansen have said that the wallet is linked to HTX, a crypto exchange for which the billionaire Justin Sun serves as global adviser.
Neither Sun, who toldForbes in March that his net worth exceeds $40 billion, nor HTX responded to requests for comment.
The billionaire is a controversial figure in the crypto industry. Born in China, Sun founded Tron, a blockchain that hosted 58% of all illicit activity in crypto in 2024, according to a report from crypto analytics firm TRM Labs. (Illicit crypto volumes on Tron, however, declined by $6 billion from the year prior.)
Sun has found himself in the midst of numerous crypto debacles. Most recently, he allegedly pushed crypto trade outlet CoinDesk to spike a story on how the crypto billionaire bought and ate a $6.2 million banana.
Singapore crypto firm MemeCore
With about $17.5 million in Trump’s memecoin, the second largest holder on the leaderboard is the Singaporean crypto startup MemeCore, according to public posts from the firm and Nansen.
Founded in January 2024, the firm is building a blockchain for memecoins, or cryptocurrencies created as jokes without any inherent value, Ting Hsu, MemeCore’s chief business development officer, told Fortune. Trump himself is one of the most “iconic” memes, she said.
Hsu didn’t share exactly how the company is funding its Trump crypto investments, but she did say some of the money came from the company’s “internal treasuries” as well as from one of the startup’s anonymous cofounders, whose identity she declined to share. That anonymous founder will attend the dinner with Trump on May 22, according to Hsu.
The Memecore executive didn’t know who else was planning to attend the dinner and was also curious to see the guest list. “Why [do] you guys want to join this?” she asked.
Australian investor Kain Warwick
While he’s not one of the top 25 largest Trump memecoin holders, Kain Warwick, an Australian crypto investor, has made the top 220, according to The New York Times. (Warick did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.)
The founder of the crypto company Infinex, Warwick was playing basketball with his kids on a weekend afternoon in January when he saw on social media that the 47th president had apparently launched his own memecoin, according to his X account.
He didn’t know whether the cryptocurrency was legitimately Trump’s and worked feverishly to verify that it was real. He eventually did, invested some money, and went back to playing with his children.
But, as he was taking his kids to the beach, he doubled his bet. “Yesterday was a once-in-a-career opportunity,” he wrote, reflecting one day later on Trump’s cryptocurrency launch.
A Standard Chartered analyst who predicted bitcoin hitting $120,000 by the second quarter now says his price call is “too low.”
“I apologise that my USD120k Q2 target may be too low,” Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital assets at Standard Chartered, said in a tongue-in-cheek comment shared with clients via email Thursday.
Last month, Kendrick wrote a note saying that he expects bitcoin to reach an all-time high of around $120,000 in the second quarter of 2025 on the back of a “strategic asset reallocation away from US assets” and “accumulation by ‘whales’ (major holders).”
“We expect these supportive factors to push BTC to a fresh all-time high around USD 120,000 in Q2,” Kendrick said at the time. “We see gains continuing through the summer, taking BTC-USD towards our year-end forecast of 200,000.”
On Thursday, Kendrick said his $120,000 bitcoin price call now “looks very achievable” and that this may even be too low a target.
“The dominant story for Bitcoin has changed again,” the Standard Chartered analyst said. “It was correlation to risk assets … It then became a way to position for strategic asset reallocation out of US assets.”
“It is now all about flows. And flows are coming in many forms,” he added.
His comments come as bitcoin once again topped the $100,000 level. The price of the cryptocurrency was last trading up by 4.5% at $$100,511.22, according to Coin Metrics.
In recent years, analysts have picked up on a pattern that shows bitcoin trading in a similar way to risk assets such as U.S. technology stocks — the rationale being that increased inflows of more institutional capital into bitcoin makes it more prone to the same market risks equity markets face.
Kendrick — who has long held a bullish position on the cryptocurrency — said that U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds have seen $5.3 billion of inflows in the past three weeks, suggesting more institutional money is piling in.
He pointed to several examples of large investors allocating part of their portfolios to bitcoin, including software firm MicroStrategy ramping up bitcoin purchases, the Abu Dhbai sovereign wealth fund holding BlackRock’s IBIT bitcoin ETF, and the Swiss National Bank buying shares of MicroStrategy.
MicroStrategy is widely considered a proxy for bitcoin.
MoviePass, the startup that made its mark with its movie theater subscription service, has always been known for shaking things up, and its latest venture is no exception.
The company announced on Thursday the beta launch of Mogul, a new daily fantasy entertainment platform designed specifically for the Hollywood industry.
To understand what Mogul is, it’s important to first grasp the concept of daily fantasy sports. This subcategory of fantasy sports allows players to compete over short-term periods, rather than an entire season. Players assume the role of team managers, creating their own dream teams made up of real-world athletes and earning points based on how those athletes perform in actual games.
Mogul takes this idea by allowing users, who are likely passionate movie enthusiasts interested in this sort of thing, to act as studio heads in the film industry. Players are provided with a budget and “studio credits” (in-game currency) to spend on selecting actors for their leagues.
Users can update their lineup of movie actors each day. They then participate in fantasy-style tournaments that last about a week, plus one-on-one competitions and solo challenges. Participants make calls on the results of various things, such as box office results, audience turnout, critic ratings, and potential award winners.
As users level up, they earn digital collectibles — think signed posters and memorabilia — that help them climb the leaderboard.
Mogul is built on Sui, a layer 1 blockchain and smart contract platform developed by Mysten Labs. Beta testers will receive a digital wallet to securely store their in-game virtual currency, rewards, and collectibles.
MoviePass is taking a bold leap with the introduction of Mogul, as it has never really been done before. But CEO Stacy Spikes believes it’s a huge market waiting to be tapped. He said, “People can name more actors than they can probably name sports athletes. So I think there’s a really big market opportunity there.”
Initially, when we first learned about Mogul, we didn’t anticipate that it would take off, at least not in the early stages. We wondered if there are many movie fans willing to compete with others about box office revenue or ratings.
However, we may have underestimated its appeal. The company claims that more than 400,000 people have already signed up for the early-access waitlist. It remains to be seen whether it can maintain this level of interest leading up to the official launch, but it could become popular among niche film industry followers.
During our initial conversation with Spikes, he positioned Mogul as a predictive market platform. Later on, we were told that a more fitting description would be to classify Mogul as a daily fantasy sports platform, but it may evolve to include this functionality in the future. For now, though, Mogul operates exclusively with virtual currency.
This distinction is important, especially considering the regulated nature of daily fantasy sports, as opposed to prediction market platforms, which currently exist in a legal gray area. Kalshi, for instance, has been in ongoing legal battles with state gambling regulators.
“It’s murky what needs to be approved. There are different types of clearances, depending on the markets you want in the U.S. You have to go state by state. It literally is like a Chinese puzzle with stuff all over the place,” Spikes said.
Mogul represents the initial phase of MoviePass’s long-term web3 strategy. The company has previously revealed its intention to provide on-chain rewards for attending movies. It’s also backed by Animoca Brands, a venture capital firm specializing in blockchain technology.
Last year, MoviePass partnered with Sui to allow subscribers to make payments using USD coin.
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