Former US President Joe Biden considered regulating cryptocurrency just like many level headed presidents and prime ministers of other countries. Because US intelligence reports revealed that the crypto currency was largely used by the underworld to stash money earned by beating the law and it kept moving across the globe and had no regulatory authority to track it.
He also considered introducing Bit coin through the Federal Reserve where there was accountability in terms of the source of income going into Bit coin and it came under the government’s regulatory measures. India too is considering introducing Bit coin through its Federal Reserve, namely the Reserve Bank of India so that source of income is known for tax purposes, and its movement was kept a track of.
The entire idea of introducing official crypto currency was to ensure that genuine investors monies parked in the Bit coin was diverted back to official channels and their monies were protected and it was not nixed with the monies moved by the underworlds such as drug cartels of Mexico, crime lords of New York and Chicago, and blood money from Africa.
Watchdog groups, congressional Democrats and some Republicans have levelled a firestorm of criticism at Trump for hawking his own meme coin, $Trump, a novelty crypto token with no inherent value, by personally hosting a 22 May dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 largest buyers of $Trump and a private “reception” for the 25 biggest buyers.
Before Biden could move into the matter with Fed Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, he went out of power ceding presidential powers and authority to a businessman cum politician Donald Trump, who thinks out of the box (the Wrong Way) and uses non bureaucratic methods to implement his policies.
So, the world of crypto currency has got a new lease of life, thanks to Trump, who has launched his own company through his family members, called the World Liberty Financial.
The world of crypto currency is strange. Ever since its introduction, probably a decade ago, it was launched with a $1 price tag which soared to $1,000 and now is a whopping $100,000. It’s fantastic place to invest without being monitored by the government and having to pay taxes when you double, triple, quadruple your investments.
Crypto currencies use a tool or methodology for storing virtual money in an ingenious way – the block chain technology. Money is stored virtually in a black box from which you can recall your money anytime, anywhere in the world through codes provided to you by the masterminds of the block chain who manage your currency. Those who manage the block chain are anonymous bankers.
The problem with crypto currency is that it exploded into tens and thousands of different variants of the Bit Coin; I shall list them separately in my next essay.
Bitcoins are becoming famous in India where a lot of income generated by mafia dons, film stars and corrupt politicians park their illegal incomes in crypto-currency, which is not monitored by the government.
The entire idea of introducing official crypto currency was to ensure that genuine investors monies parked in the Bit coin was diverted back to official channels and their monies were protected and it was not nixed with the monies moved by the underworlds such as drug cartels of Mexico, crime lords of New York and Chicago, and blood money from Africa.
Even famous movie stars like Amitabh Bachchan openly admitted in a TV interview that he invested his money in cryptocurrency which quadrupled his money, and he went on to say you can also do it.
The interview was taken down by the channel as it kicked up not just a controversy but a storm in the financial world which was largely regulated by the Reserve Bank of India at a time when the Modi government was planning to introduce an official version of its own cryptocurrency where investors monies were tracked, secured and avoided being mixed with shady dealer’s parking monies there.
Let’s focus on America, the biggest crypto currency market in the world. What has Trump done? Let’s start with the latest development.
Trump’s crypto complicates Las Vegas wedding between MAGA and bit coin
Trump was the promoter of the Bit coin 2025 conference in Las Vegas where participants questioned the effects of Trump’s meme coin. The meme coin had no links to the president himself per se but to his son Eric Trump, Don Trump jr, managing a company called the World Liberty Financial. WLF.
At LAS VEGAS, the biggest official gambling den of the world, bit coin’ staged its biggest event of the year, the Trump administration was omnipresent. Vice President JD Vance was the keynote speaker at the Bit coin 2025 conference Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. appeared on multiple panels, and a delegation of White House advisers including crypto czar David Sacks praised crypto as the future of technology. 
Trump has been loosening government oversight and regulations around crypto currency; he has also waded into his own crypto project: the $TRUMP coin. Earlier in May, Trump hosted a private dinner at his Washington, D.C.-area golf club for top $TRUMP coin buyers, who on average spent more than $1 million per seat and sparked widespread concern about opportunities for influence-buying.
‘Roadmap for corruption’: Trump’s dive into crypto currency raised alarm over ethical financial dealings. The president’s hawking of $Trump meme coin has sparked a firestorm of criticism over potential influence buying.
Donald Trump’s push to sharply ease oversight of the crypto currency industry, while he and his sons have fast expanded crypto ventures that have reaped billions of dollars from investors including foreign ones, is raising alarm about ethical and legal issues.
Watchdog groups, congressional Democrats and some Republicans have levelled a firestorm of criticism at Trump for hawking his own meme coin, $Trump, a novelty crypto token with no inherent value, by personally hosting a 22 May dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 largest buyers of $Trump and a private “reception” for the 25 biggest buyers.
To attend the two events, the $Trump buyers spent about $148m, which will benefit Trump and partners, according to the crypto firm Inca Digital.
Further, the Trump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial that launched last fall, which his two oldest sons have promoted hard, was tapped this month to play a key part in a $2bn investment deal by an Abu Dhabi financial fund in the crypto exchange Binance, which in 2023 pleaded guilty to US money laundering and other violations.
The new WLF deal was announced at an Abu Dhabi crypto conference that drew Eric Trump two weeks before Trump’s mid-May visit to the United Arab Emirates capital, sparking other concerns of improper foreign influence and ethics issues. 
Trump’s ardent pursuit of crypto fortunes was highlighted in a report last month from the watchdog group State Democracy Defenders Fund that estimated his crypto ventures as of mid-March to be worth about $2.9bn. That is a striking sum since Trump’s crypto ventures are less than a year old.
Senate Democrats led by Jeff Merkley of Oregon and the minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, introduced a bill this month that has garnered sizable Democratic backing to block Trump from using his office to benefit his crypto businesses.
Watchdogs say Trump is exploiting his office for personal gain in unprecedented and dangerous ways.
Eric Trump, the executive vice-president of the Trump Organization spoke with the co-founder of World Liberty Financial, Zach Witkoff, and founder of Tron, Justin Sun, during a crypto event in Dubai on 1 May.
“There is the appearance if not the reality of corruption in the upcoming dinner with Trump on the 22nd at his Virginia golf club for the 220 biggest Trump meme coin buyers and the private reception he’s promised for the top 25 buyers, plus the separate $2bn deal between World Liberty Financial and the Abu Dhabi investment vehicle,” said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics adviser to George W Bush who co-authored the Democracy Defenders Fund report.
Other experts are equally troubled by Trump’s manifest conflicts.
“Trump is marketing access to himself as a way to profit from his meme coin,” said the Columbia Law professor Richard Briffault, an expert on government ethics.
“People are paying to meet Trump and he’s the regulator in chief. It’s doubly corrupt. This is unprecedented. I don’t think there’s been anything like this in American history.” Briffault pointed out.
Such concerns were fueled when Trump quickly chose crypto industry allies to run the Securities and Exchange Commission and as his “czar” for crypto and AI. Among other moves, the SEC has dropped or put on hold investigations and prosecutions of over a dozen crypto firms.
This is unprecedented. I don’t think there’s been anything like this in American history, Professor Richard Briffault said.
Fears of possible corruption have also focused on Chinese-born Justin Sun, the biggest investor in Trump’s crypto ventures. Sun bought about $20m of $Trump to become its top purchaser before the dinner on the 22nd which he attended. Sun previously invested at least $75m in World Liberty Financial to become its lead investor and an adviser.
Sun may also be benefiting from the SEC’s laxer oversight. Sun was sued by the SEC in 2023 for fraudulent market manipulation and other allegations of misconduct involving three other crypto enterprises of his, including the Tron Foundation.
As the SEC eased its crypto oversight, the agency earlier this year paused its case against Sun, sparking concerns that Trump’s financial ties to Sun might have influenced the agency’s decision, a matter that Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and the Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters of California raised in a letter to the SEC last month, The NBC said in a report.
The SEC allegedly has been holding talks with Sun about settling the charges, and the agency’s chairman told a congressional hearing on 20 May that he knew nothing about Sun’s case.
Other warnings about Trump’s crypto dealings have also been fueled by recent scandals that have plagued crypto businesses, many of which are known for their opaque operations and some illicit dealings including ones tied to North Korean hackers that helped fund the country’s nuclear and military programs, reports say.
Crypto critics were taken aback by a justice department memo in April that closed or packed up a national crypto currency enforcement team that was established in 2022, which had brought some major crypto cases against North Korean hackers and other crypto criminals.
The memo stressed the justice department was not a “digital assets regulator” and in a political twist lambasted the Biden administration for its “reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution”. The memo noted that a January pro-crypto Trump executive order spurred its decision.
“Trump’s personal and family net worth has gone up by billions of dollars this year due to crypto ventures,” said the Democratic representative Jamie Raskin from Maryland. Raskin warned that Trump’s crypto ventures offered the “perfect opportunity for foreign government, corporate and individual funds to be funneled into Donald Trump’s bank account and his family’s finances”.
For their part, Trump, his family and White House press statements have dismissed concerns about conflicts of interest or ethical improprieties with Trump promoting his crypto business while in office.
White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters before the dinner that Trump was attending it in his “personal time” and it was not a White House event, but declined to release names of the attendees.
The Trump Organization in January said that the president’s business interests including his assets and investments would be placed in a trust that his children would manage and that Trump would not get involved in decision-making or daily operations.
Those pledges have been overshadowed by Trump’s enthusiasm for his digital currencies. In a harbinger of Trump’s two crypto events on the 22nd, in March he hosted the first-ever White House “crypto summit” for a couple of dozen industry leaders where he pledged to end the Biden administration’s “war on crypto”.
“Trump’s crypto schemes are profoundly corrupt,” Merkley told the Guardian. “He’s selling access to his administration and enriching himself in the process.”
In response, Merkley and Schumer introduced the End Crypto Corruption Act, which 20 other Democrats have endorsed.
Merkley stressed that the bill would “not only crack down on this alleged corruption but also prevent other officials – like members of Congress and Trump’s billionaire sidekick Elon Musk – from betraying public trust”.
How Trump’s love for crypto threatens US residents’ peace: ‘I just want quiet’
Merkley’s warnings are now being echoed by several watchdogs.
“Trump’s dealings in crypto appear to present the greatest conflicts of interest and avenues for corruption any president has ever embraced,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission who now teaches law at American University.
Noble’s alarms are underscored by the large number of foreign buyers who appear to have scooped up Trump’s meme coin to win coveted spots at his dinner.
While the identities of most $Trump purchasers are unknown, several reports from crypto analysts who track the industry suggest that a large number of foreign buyers have ponied up tens of millions of dollars to buy $Trump coins and attend the dinner.
One analysis by Bloomberg has indicated that 19 of the top 25 crypto wallets are almost definitely owned by individuals who operate outside the US.
Justin Sun, who bought $4.5m of his almost $20m in $Trump coins after Trump announced the events on the 22nd, showed his appreciation by posting on X on 19 May: “Honored to support @POTUS and grateful for the invitation from Get Trump Memes to attend President Trump’s Gala Dinner as his TOP fan!”
Besides Sun, the second biggest buyer is reportedly Meme Core, a Singapore-based crypto network that was vocal about its interest in attending the Trump dinner and invested $18m.
Trump’s avid embrace of crypto became palpable last summer at a bit coin conference where he pledged to make the US the “crypto capital of the world”, a marked shift from 2021 when he dismissed bit coin as a “scam”. The change helped his campaign pull in millions of dollars in crypto industry donations.
Last fall, Trump and his two older sons, Eric and Don Jr, announced on the multi billionaire Elon Musk’s X that they were launching World Liberty Financial.
Trump on X boasted opaquely that “crypto is one of those things we have to do. Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.” A white paper for the new business dubbed Trump “its chief crypto advocate”, and his sons have promoted it aggressively and helped to lure new investments.
Reuters reported in late March, that World Liberty Financial had raised more than $500m in recent months. Trump’s family now controls the bulk of its business and Reuters revealed that it is entitled to about $400m in fees and 75% of revenues from WLF’s token sales.
The recent $2bn investment deal that WLF will be part of with the Abu Dhabi fund and Binance is the latest big financial coup for Trump and his sons, but one that’s raised some red flags given legal problems that have previously beset Binance.
The Abu Dhabi fund MGX , which has backing from the UAE government, according to reports is slated to use a stable coin product that WLF is now marketing to help complete its $2bn investment deal in Binance. A stable coin is a crypto currency pegged to a traditional currency, or a more stable asset such as the dollar.
The WLF stable coin, dubbed USD1, will be used by MGX to invest in Binance, the world’s largest crypto currency exchange that operates in dozens of countries; on 22 May Binance also announced that it would list WLF’s USD1 for trading.
Previous legal problems for Binance may attract new attention, say critics including congressional Democrats. Binance’s ex-CEO and founder, Changpeng Zhao, in late 2023 pleaded guilty in the US to violating the Bank Secrecy Act and failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program at Binance, which also copped a guilty plea to criminal charges and paid over $4bn in fines.
Zhao, who served a four-month prison term last year and still owns 90% of the firm, revealed on a podcast on 5 May that he was seeking a pardon from the Trump administration, which several senators raised questions about in a 15 May letter to top justice department officials.
Before WLF’s role with the Abu Dhabi fund’s investment in Binance and to grow its crypto empire, WLF unveiled its first stable coin in March, as a stable coin Senate bill – dubbed “the Genius Act”, which critics say eases regulatory controls too much – moved closer to passing.
Trump has taken corruption and self-dealing to a new level
Former Republican congressman Dave Trott
Watchdog groups and some Democrats including Warren have warned that the Senate bill’s regulations are too lax to prevent fraudulent uses, as new studies have noted that these coins and other digital assets are increasingly being used for money laundering by Chinese exporters and producers of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs.
It’s a paradox that Trump on the one hand is imposing heavy tariffs on countries such as Mexico and Canada (only 1%) of Fentanyl smuggling into the US, promotes crypto through WLF and Binance association where Chinese exporters and producers of precursors to Fentanyl are parking their monies earned through smuggling synthetic opioids into the US.
Republicans in Congress have been largely silent about Trump and his family capitalizing on their crypto ventures to enrich themselves. But the Wyoming Republican senator Cynthia Lummis, a lead sponsor of the Genius Act, which on 19 May notched a key vote towards Senate passage and would also benefit WLF’s stable coin, has said the upcoming $Trump events have given her “pause”.
Some former Republican members are livid about Trump’s crypto dealings.
“Trump has taken corruption and self-dealing to a new level,” said the ex-Republican congressman Dave Trott of Michigan. “He seems singularly motivated to deregulate the crypto industry for the financial benefit of himself and his family, and few Republicans are calling him out.”
Trott said he was weighing a run for Congress in 2026 as an independent or a Democrat. “I wish I was still in Congress so I could vote to impeach the guy,” he added, referring to Trump.
Trott said he was weighing a run for Congress in 2026 as an independent or a Democrat. “I wish I was still in Congress so I could vote to impeach the guy,” he added, referring to Trump.
Further, leading House Democrats say Trump’s presidency is benefiting his burgeoning crypto business in dangerous ways.
Trump’s cryptocurrency endeavor caps a political career filled with conflicts of interest
“Trump’s personal and family net worth has gone up by billions of dollars this year due to crypto ventures,” said the Democratic representative Jamie Raskin from Maryland. Raskin warned that Trump’s crypto ventures offered the “perfect opportunity for foreign government, corporate and individual funds to be funneled into Donald Trump’s bank account and his family’s finances”.
Likewise, Noble foresees national security and other dangers with Trump and his family’s fast-growing crypto businesses.
“World Liberty Financial and $Trump appear to allow foreign governments, corporate interests and wealthy private donors who want something from Trump to secretly add to his wealth. This is a roadmap for corruption. What they want in return for their investments may present real dangers to our economy and national security.” Noble observed.
Source: Multiple publications and NBC, Guardian, AP.
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