Just over a year ago, I stood in a gilded Washington, D.C. ballroom during inauguration weekend, surrounded by the blockchain industry’s top executives and investors. They had traded in their hoodies for tuxedos and gowns, celebrating the ascension of the first “crypto president,” Donald Trump, who had embraced the once-renegade sector on the campaign trail. But halfway through the night, whispers began spreading through the crowd that Trump, who was not in attendance, had launched his own memecoin. Around the end of a DJ set by Snoop Dogg, the Trump coin had crossed $1 billion.
Some of the shrewder members of the audience immediately clocked what was happening. Trump, who has made a career out of branding everything from casinos to steaks to unaccredited colleges, was doing the same with crypto. Would Trump’s latest business venture go the way of Trump Tower or Trump University?
