Latest news with #InauguralCryptoBall
USA Today
28-01-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Snoop Dogg addresses 'all the hate' after Trump inauguration performance backlash
Snoop Dogg addresses 'all the hate' after Trump inauguration performance backlash Show Caption Hide Caption Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, Simone Biles' parents and other celebrities seen at Paris 2024 Olympics Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, Simone Biles' parents and other celebrities seen at Paris 2024 Olympics Snoop Dogg seems to have the backlash from his inauguration performance on his mind. The "Drop It Like It's Hot" rapper, 53, in an Instagram video on Sunday appeared to respond to criticism he received for performing at the Inaugural Crypto Ball, an event celebrating President Donald Trump's inauguration. In the clip, Snoop Dogg listened to the song "Ain't No Need to Worry" in a car and told followers, "For all the hate, I'm gonna answer it with love. Y'all can't hate enough on me. I love too much." He continued, "Get your life right. Stop worrying about mine. I'm cool. I'm together. Still a Black man. Still 100% Black." "You can be up one minute, and they'll try to pull you down the next," he added later in the video. "But I'm a strong Black man. I'm cut from a different cloth. Can't tear me down." The rapper did not directly tie his remarks to the inauguration backlash, but fans certainly took it that way. The post received a flood of negative comments from followers who remained disappointed that he performed at the event. "Lost all respect," one comment read, while another said, "Snoop you disappointed us. We been riding with you since we were kids. This one hurts for real." Still others defended him, with one follower commenting, "He can perform for whoever he want leave him alone." Snoop Dogg under fire for performance at crypto event celebrating Trump inauguration Snoop Dogg performed at the Inaugural Crypto Ball in Washington, D.C., three days before Trump's swearing-in. The event was intended "to honor the 60th Presidential Inauguration, America's first 'crypto president,' President elect Donald J. Trump, his incoming cabinet and administration," according to its website. While Trump wasn't in attendance, the president's crypto czar David Sacks served as emcee. Fans were surprised Snoop Dogg chose to participate in the event after he said in 2017 that he would "roast" any artist who performed at Trump's first inauguration. He previously spoke out against the president and even shot a clown dressed like Trump in a 2017 music video. Snoop Dogg also said in a 2020 interview on Real 92.3 that he would vote in that year's presidential election "because I can't stand to see this punk in office one more year." Whoopi Goldberg defends Carrie Underwood's decision to sing at Trump inauguration Since then, he appears to have had a change of heart. In a 2024 interview with The Sunday Times, he said, "I have nothing but love and respect for Donald Trump." Snoop Dogg wasn't the only artist who received backlash for an inauguration performance, as Carrie Underwood also faced criticism for performing at Trump's swearing-in ceremony. She has not addressed the backlash but said in a previous statement, "I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future." Contributing: Douglas Gillison, Suzanne McGee and Michelle Price, Reuters
USA Today
26-01-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Trump's meme coin continues pattern milking the presidency – and his supporters
Anyone familiar with the world of crypto knows that hyper volatility is a significant risk when investing in digital currencies, "non-fungible tokens" and "meme coins." And anyone familiar with President Donald Trump knows he's a shameless huckster always eager to squeeze his supporters to cash in on his name. Trump, perpetually scheming for a payday, picks occasions when the focus is on him to launch some new Trump-branded schlock. If you're talking about Trump for any reason, he's got something with his name branded on it to sell you at that very moment. So it should have come as no surprise when Trump, on the Friday before his inauguration last Monday, started selling a digital token, known as a meme coin – as supporters were partying at the Inaugural Crypto Ball, just a half-mile from the White House. But some players in the crypto world were dismayed and disappointed that Trump cashed in at the very moment that they were eager about an ally in the White House bringing a stronger sense of legitimacy to their endeavors. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. This is what it means to be allied with Trump. Anything that puts money in his pockets is a priority. Anything that advances the interest of his allies can wait. Is Trump's coin just another crypto 'rug pull'? Andy Baehr, managing director and head of product at CoinDesk, told me meme coins are "definitionally and unashamedly frivolous" without "any utility." CoinDesk is a website that reports on and indexes crypto products. Trump's coin – known as $Trump – looks like a gaudy baseball card with his picture, the phrase "fight, fight, fight" and his signature. People in the past week have paid in a wildly fluctuating range for this odd digital keepsake, from about $6.50 on the evening it was introduced to nearly $73 on the day before Trump's inauguration. The price had dropped into the low $30-range by Friday afternoon. Trump's wife, Melania, launched her own coin called $Melania the day before his inauguration. It was valued about $2.50 on Friday afternoon. Opinion:Trump didn't wait to be sworn in to start breaking his campaign promises to you Baehr noted that coins like this demonstrate a market for this kind of thing and create transaction fees across the blockchain networks that store them, helping the industry grow. But Trump's coin, he said, prompted this reaction in the crypto industry: "Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should." "Our industry is trying very hard to demonstrate that it's serious, that it welcomes useful regulation, that it wants to be more regulated, that it wants to have serious conversations with regulators and legislators to help improve how finance works, how investing works, how capital raising works, how trading works," Baehr said. "And something like this, that is so public and so unavoidably top-of-fold headline, threatens to set back how seriously the conversation is taken." The crypto industry has a derogatory term for get-rich quick schemes and Baehr heard it invoked – "rug pull." That means cashing in on a coin fast and then walking, or running, away. Is Trump making money from his meme coin? There was plenty of speculation about how much money Trump made on his new coin. Rob Hadick, a general partner at the crypto venture capital firm Dragonfly, told me Trump's stake in this "is very unclear" for now. The $Trump coin website said 200 million of them were put on the market Friday and 800 million more will be put up for sale gradually over the coming three years. Opinion:Trump is using executive orders and pardons to rewrite the history of his first term The president on Tuesday tried to play both dumb and triumphant about his new coin when asked at the White House if he would keep selling products for personal benefit as president. "I don't know much about it, other than I launched it," Trump said about his new venture. "I heard it was very successful." The fine print on the $Trump website notes that a company registered in Delaware in 2022, affiliated with Trump's family real estate business, is part owner of a new company registered this month in Delaware. Combined, the two companies own 80% of the coins. Hadick sees $Trump buyers as a mix of crypto speculators and Trump supporters. Some may hope that Trump will add some sort of "utility" to the coin, he said. Trump, during his presidential campaign, sold non-fungible tokens, known as NFTs, another kind of digital product akin to a baseball card. Buyers who sunk enough money into those digital products were rewarded last year with a dinner with Trump in Florida. That's the utility. In politics, it's sometimes called "pay to play." $Trump is exactly the kind of thing our president loves to do And there's the problem. Trump needs to keep churning the attention machine to drive interest in the stuff he wants to sell his supporters. David Materazzi, CEO of Galileo FX, a firm that develops automated trading software, told me the price of $Trump isn't tied to anything in the real world and is driven instead by "hype," often about what's being reported about Trump in the news. "He thrives on controversy. If something is controversial and you ask Trump, do you want to do it, he's going to say yes," Materazzi said. "Controversy helps him. It doesn't do anything to him." Could Trump court controversy just for the attention it brings to his coin, and the money that follows? "He has a lot of people who are willing to follow him to hell," Materazzi told me. "I think that's the game they're trying to play." Those people, in their ubiquitous red hats, will also be wearing clunky Trump watches and gold Trump sneakers on that long march. They may even be stock holders in Truth Social, Trump's social media platform that has seen some pricing volatility of its own. Time for a reminder: Truth Social, regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, must periodically warn potential investors about obvious risks. Those SEC filings, as I wrote about last year, are a litany of losses, of Trump business flops where his brand, for all its brash bluster, emerged as a loser. Trump still did OK in the end. Do you really think he cares if you do as well, by investing in a coin he is selling but claims to know little about? Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
