Latest news with #memecoins
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Trump Memecoins Complicate Legislative Effort, GOP Lawmaker Says
House Financial Services Chairman French Hill said activity by President Donald Trump in cryptocurrency and memecoins has complicated work in Congress to pass legislation that's been in the works for years. 'It's absolutely fact,' Hill said, 'the Trump family engagement in the memecoin world has made this work more complicated, because it has distracted, I think our members, both Republican and Democrat, from what we need to do.' He was responding to a question at the Reagan National Economic Forum on Friday in Simi Valley, California.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘I lost $80K... without telling my wife,' confesses father of triplets after risky bets
Bad investments don't just drain your wallet, they can wreck your entire life. That's the gut-punch takeaway from a viral crypto confession posted by Coinfessions a page on X, where a memecoin trader admitted to losing $80,000 without telling his wife. The anonymous message has stunned the community with its raw honesty. Ever get rugged by a memecoin? Take our poll now 'Lost nearly $80,000 trading memecoins—without telling my wife. Yeah, I messed up. Badly. We recently had triplets, and expenses are exploding. I tried to multiply our money fast, but instead I buried us deeper. When things started spiralling, I borrowed from a friend to stay afloat. Now I'm paying him back $2,000 a month.' 'I earn between $20K–$30K monthly, but with our current lifestyle and three newborns, every dollar vanishes. I'm overwhelmed, ashamed, and trying to regain control of my finances before this destroys more than just our bank account. Should I start aggressive budgeting? Downsizing? I know I screwed up, but I want to fix it the right way.' Did your 'next Dogecoin' go to zero? Vote in our poll It couldn't come at a more striking moment. The overall meme coin market is down nearly 3% in the last 24 hours. And maybe that's what makes this post so relatable. Because behind every moonshot bet and Discord call is a real person, sometimes with a new family, a crumbling secret, and a $2,000 monthly debt to a friend who helped them stay afloat. Despite Bitcoin hitting a record $111,970 earlier this week, the broader market is flashing red. (BTC) has dipped to $107,600, while Ethereum (ETH) is hovering around $2,520, down 1.1% in 24 hours. Meme tokens? Even worse. Pepe, Bonk, and dogwifhat (WIF) have all slipped between 5% and 8%. Market-wide, memecoins are down 2.8% in just 24 hours, with a total cap of $72.5 billion. Editor's note: Always research thoroughly before investing in crypto. Even popular memecoins carry extreme risks and can lead to significant financial losses. 'I lost $80K... without telling my wife,' confesses father of triplets after risky bets first appeared on TheStreet on May 25, 2025 Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Chart of the Week: Bitcoin Soars, But ‘Wen Lambo' Crowd Is Missing From the Rally
What happens when retail logs off from crypto and Wall Street tunes in? Looking at bitcoin's BTC recent all-time-high, one would say it feels bullish and the industry is maturing. That might as well be the case, but we might not be there yet. So before we floor our Lambos, let's look under the hood. First things first, retail investors have basically ghosted this rally. A quick search on Google Trends using the keyword "bitcoin" shows that the surge that was seen back in 2021's bull market is non-existent. Back then, everyone and their grandmothers were Googling bitcoin, aping into altcoins and flooding the social media with rocket emojis. In 2025? It's a ghost town in retail-land. There was a blip of high retail interest surrounding the U.S. presidential election, when a short-lived memecoin mania took over retail sentiment. However, that surge is long gone, as memecoin prices tanked swiftly, even as bitcoin hit an all-time high this week, ripping past $111,000. "Early in this cycle, memecoins became a concentration of risky retail-driven trading with related trading peaking in January," said Toronto-based crypto platform FRNT Financial. "However, since then, there has been a virtual wash-out of interest and memecoin trading activity," which shows "the tepid risk appetite in crypto at the moment," FRNT added. Translation: "Wen Lambo" crowd got burned, and they aren't rushing back into the race track en masse anytime soon. On the topic of risk appetite, let's go back to the car analogy. During the 2021 bull market, people bought unreliable performance cars, stripped out the brakes and seatbelts to go faster than ever before, and did not care that there might be engine blowouts. As long as there was a promise of reaching the moon, bullish vibes were all that mattered. Now? After losing tremendous amounts of money on those unsustainable go-fast cars for years, traders are driving Toyota Corollas—sensible sedans that are slow but steady and still on the road. That risk-off sentiment is also evident from the funding rates, according to FRNT's analysis of BTC perp rates—a measure of how much traders are willing to pay to maintain their long positions. When bitcoin reached a record high of around $42,000 in January 2021, the perp rate was about blistering 185%. Today, at bitcoin near $110,000, the rate is near 20% on crypto options exchange Deribit, meaning the risk appetite isn't completely gone but nowhere near the 2021 frenzy. A third point to add is the high number of short positions in the market. As CoinDesk's Oliver Knight reported this week, the bitcoin long/short ratio is at its lowest point since the crypto winter in September 2022. This implies that the majority of the traders aren't completely buying into this recent positive momentum and betting on bitcoin moving lower as a hedge for the new bullish rally. The impact of such positioning was clear on Friday, when bitcoin swiftly crashed from near $111,000 to $108,000 in a matter of minutes and then bounced right back up to $109,000. The anxiety of a swift volatility is real. So in a car-themed analogy, the drivers (in this case, investors) are still taking out their super-modified, unreliable sports cars for a weekend drive on the track. Still, they also have their Corollas following along. Just in case the engine blows on their go-fast cars. Given the current macro-risk, it's not entirely surprising that investors are on their toes and risk-averse. But this might just be exactly what your mechanic at the shop prescribed. In fact, this might be an indicator of a sustainable rally in the long term. "Periods of low leverage and risk appetite in crypto have often preceded further sustainable gains," according to FRNT. "BTC appears to be in such a phase, set against a backdrop of numerous bullish catalysts and narratives," the firm added. The bottom line is that the retail Lambos might have been towed away, but big money is stepping in with their everlasting Toyotas. This might start a slow but steady race to the moon, not just a reckless in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
New York Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Who Won a Seat at Trump's Crypto Dinner?
The invitees for President Trump's private dinner for customers of his cryptocurrency business on Thursday included a Chinese billionaire fighting a lawsuit from U.S. regulators, an attorney for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a former basketball star, and executives from crypto businesses from Miami Beach to Singapore, according to a guest list obtained by The New York Times and social media posts reviewed by The Times. The dinner, at which Mr. Trump gave remarks, was an extraordinary moment in which the president leveraged his position to make money — for his crypto business and for his Virginia golf club, which hosted the event. The event's invited guests were not known publicly beforehand, even to each other. They were identified only by the pseudonyms they used on the electronic 'wallets' where they kept their $TRUMP memecoins. Most had gained an invitation by becoming one of the top 220 holders of that memecoin over a certain period of time. The top 25 of those were given V.I.P. status and afforded a more intimate gathering before the dinner and an unofficial tour of the White House on Friday. When they arrived at Mr. Trump's club outside Washington Thursday evening, the digital world had become physical. The invitees' names and contact information were delineated on paper lists, checked by staffers at the door. A Times reporter reviewed one of those lists, and used it to identify people who were present. Some other invitees self-identified on social media. A reporter and photographer from The Times also saw some $TRUMP crypto buyers enter and exit the White House on Friday. The following were among those who were invited to the festivities: Invitees to the White House Justin Sun, a Chinese crypto billionaire who was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for allegedly inflating the value of a cryptocurrency. Mr. Sun is a major investor in a separate crypto venture largely owned by a company tied to Mr. Trump, World Liberty Financial. After Mr. Trump took office, the S.E.C. asked a judge to put Mr. Sun's case on hold. He declined to comment on Thursday night. Elliot Berke, a Washington attorney who has worked for congressional Republicans and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The Times identified him because the invitee list included his email address at his law firm, Berke Farah. He was honored as 'Republican Lawyer of the Year' in 2021 by the Republican National Lawyers Association. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent via email or LinkedIn message. Evgeny Gaevoy, the founder and chief executive of a digital-asset firm, Wintermute. The Times identified him because the list of invitees included his Wintermute email. He did not respond to a request for comment sent via email. Anil Lulla and Yan Liberman, two co-founders of Delphi Digital, a Miami Beach firm that offers market intelligence for crypto investors. Their corporate emails were included in the list of invitees. They did not respond to requests for comment. Cheng Lu, 32, a crypto investor from Shanghai, was observed by a Times reporter entering the White House on Friday. He said he did not have a chance to speak with Mr. Trump during the dinner on Thursday or at the Friday tour. 'I just want to see President Trump,' he said. He plans to go to Las Vegas next for a poker tournament, he said. Stephen Dworkin, founder of CTS International, was observed by a reporter for The Times entering the White House on Friday. The company has helped military contractors, including Israel Aircraft Industries, recruit employees, according to his LinkedIn page. He declined to comment. Sangrok Oh, chief executive of Hyperithm, a Seoul- and Tokyo-based firm that manages digital assets for institutional investors in Asia. He was observed entering the Thursday event and was interviewed by a reporter for The Times and was seen outside the White House on Friday as the V.I.P. buyers visited for the tour. Other invitees Caitlin Sinclair, a conservative media personality who has worked as a reporter for pro-Trump One America News and the young-conservatives group, Turning Point USA. She posted photos from the dinner on social media, including one that showed Mr. Trump in the background. Ms. Sinclair's role at the event was unclear, but attendees found fliers on their tables with her photo, which said 'connect with your host,' and contained a QR code that brought them to Ms. Sinclair's website. Lamar Odom, the former National Basketball Association star now promoting his own memecoin, $ODOM. Mr. Odom posted on social media that he was attending the event, and he appeared in other guests' photos from inside Mr. Trump's club. SuKyung Na, an executive at Hyperithm.'Looking forward to interesting conversations and the chance to share a bit about what we do at Hyperithm,' Ms. Na wrote before the event. Her corporate email was on the invitee list. Charles Ayres, a Britain-based crypto marketer and YouTube promoter, confirmed in a phone interview that he attended the Thursday night event. He declined further comment. Wesley Pryor is the founder of Acheron Trading, a firm focused on digital assets. His Acheron email address was on a list of invitees reviewed by The Times. On LinkedIn, he said he had been active in cryptocurrency since he was a teenager, and that he now operates out of Singapore, which he called 'the world's most progressive jurisdiction for cryptocurrency.' He did not respond to a request for comment. Jack Tan Lu is the chief executive and co-founder of a popular marketplace for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, called Magic Eden. His email address with his company was included on the invitee list. He did not respond to an email request for comment. Clay Helms and Stephen Hess, two executives from the Metaplex Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital assets. Their emails through their nonprofit were on the invitee list reviewed by The Times. They did not respond to requests for comment. Asher Ang and Lean Sheng Tan, two executives of hedge fund Hyper-Alpha Capital. On LinkedIn, Mr. Tan said he was based in the British Virgin Islands. Their corporate emails were on the invitee list reviewed by The Times. They did not respond to requests for comment. Kain Warwick, a crypto entrepreneur in Sydney and founder of Synthetix, a crypto exchange. He was interviewed by The Times. Joel Lee, a software engineer from Singapore who says on social media that he lives in Rwanda. He was observed by a Times reporter entering the event on Thursday night. Vincent Liu, the chief investment officer at Taiwan-based Kronos Research. He posted several photos from the event on LinkedIn, with the caption: 'Great to see the support for Crypto industry from Mr. President!' Paul Jacobi, a partner at the investment firm Wexford Capital, was listed among the attendees, and a reporter for The Times saw him enter the event. His firm's website says that Mr. Jacobi 'focuses on Wexford's private equity energy investments.' Christoph Heuermann, who runs a consulting company that advises people on how to lower their taxes, flew in from Germany. He said in an email with The Times that as a non-V.I.P., he knew beforehand that he would not get to meet Mr. Trump, but he said he enjoyed hearing a speech from 'the greatest president in history.' Verjender Choudhary, a software engineer from St. Louis, said in an email that he saw the dinner as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity 'to meet the first crypto president.' Vincent Deriu, a 27-year-old consultant in New York who was ranked No. 165 on the $TRUMP leaderboard, was interviewed by The Times. 'If I were to get a selfie or a handshake or something or an autograph, that would be priceless in and of itself for me,' he said.
Forbes
10-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Memecoin Controversy Will Help The Crypto Market
Memecoins have been a part of the cryptoasset ecosystem virtually ever since the asset class achieved mass market awareness and appeal during 2017-2018. While most memecoin projects have been revealed, time and again, as grifts, pump-and-dump schemes, or otherwise unethically motivated ventures, the appeal of these projects continues to be obvious. For investors seeking to dabble into the crypto world in a casual way, or for investors looking to capitalize on a short-term spike in popularity, memecoins continue to offer an alluring path to (allegedly) easy profits. Of course, memecoins cannot be fully discussed without mentioning Dogecoin, one of the earliest to market – and most popular – memecoins that has been mentioned and supported by business tycoon Elon Musk. Recently the discourse around memecoins, and dragging the rest of the crypto landscape along as well, has turned decidedly political, as Democratic lawmakers have responded to several announcements by the Trump administration related to projects affiliated with the President's family. Two specific items that have thrust memecoins into the spotlight, and might potentially derail the GENIUS Act, include the following. First, an announcement on the Trump memecoin website inviting top investors to an intimate private dinner with VIP White House Access ruffled feathers. Secondly, the potential $2 billion investment by an Emirati state-backed venture into World Liberty Financial led to accusations of commingling transforming into legislative action. Setting politics aside, which in the current political environment is increasingly difficult, there are several lessons that the crypto market can learn from the controversy swirling around the memecoin marketplace. The fact remains that the vast majority of memecoins are speculative investments versus legitimate investment vehicles, and this needs to be understood by the wider marketplace as cryptoassets continue to make inroads across the board. Specifically, $500 million was lost memecoin scams and rug pulls in 2024, with notable celebrities being impersonated leading to notable losses that included French football star Kylian Mbappe and music artist Wiz Khalifa. This also ties into another point that investors and policymakers alike need to increase efforts around; reducing the amount of fraud and social engineering attacks via social media. According to research by Merkle Science approximately 75% of memecoin related scams and rug pulls took place on X, and 19% took place on YouTube. Given the influence of social media in the crypto community, ensuring that only quality information is circulated with increase in importance moving forward. Regardless of which celebrity or politician is involved, or which political affiliation those individuals happen to have the real impact of this memecoin crackdown should be that a greater number of investors realize that memecoins are not investment opportunities, but speculation. Although measures have been taken to add changes and amendments to the GENIUS Act the proverbial writing is on the wall for the development and utilization of stablecoins on a widespread basis. Be it the looming Circle IPO, the development and deployment of dollar-backed stablecoins by several TradFi institutions, or the inclusion of stablecoins into foreign policy discussions the interest and investment in stablecoins continues to accelerate. Especially when contrasted with memecoins and other more volatile cryptoassets, the appeal and benefits that are delivered from stablecoins will only become more obvious. Stablecoins provide the benefits of tokenized payments, including cost savings for institutions and interest generation for investors, while delivering price stability. With stablecoins, in any number of forms, being integrated within TradFi institutions as well as via crypto-native organizations, the race for tokenized fiat currencies and the leadership they will help create is well underway. In short the benefits and upsides of stablecoin adoption across the financial services sector – as well as the institutional support and buy-in that stablecoins provide – will only become more obvious as memecoins force more serious discussions around cryptoassets into policy circles. One of the most important outcomes of the political discourse that is currently underway is that the importance of legislative solutions and outcomes are being highlighted. Executive orders, mandates and actions being undertaken at the state level, and the buy-in that has accelerated among TradFi institutions have all generated significant positive sentiment and market action, but those are stop-gap measures at best. In order to establish a sustainable and positive marketplace for further crypto development legislative actions must prioritized. Unfortunately the political landscape has resulted in virtually every aspect of the crypto landscape becoming a flashpoint, but that is a necessary part of the legislative process. The singular best outcome that can result from the discourse and political machinations underway is that comprehensive legislation moves forward. Even if this future legislation is not as unequivocally pro-crypto as some lobbyists might have initially desired, the debate, highlighting of crypto pros and cons, and rooting out unethical activities will benefit the entire sector going forward. Memecoins continue to cause controversy, but will lead to a healthier and more sustainable cryptoasset marketplace going forward.
