Who Won a Seat at Trump’s Crypto Dinner?

 

Who Won a Seat at Trump’s Crypto Dinner?

 

The New York Times reviewed a guest list and social media posts to identify who was invited to President Trump’s private event for customers of his cryptocurrency business on Thursday and a White House tour on Friday. Here are some of them.

 

David A. Fahrenthold Eric LiptonDavid Yaffe-Bellany Elena Shao Dylan Freedman

By David A. FahrentholdEric LiptonDavid Yaffe-BellanyElena Shao and Dylan Freedman

David A. Fahrenthold, Eric Lipton and Dylan Freedman reported from Washington. David Yaffe-Bellany reported from Sterling, Va. Elena Shao reported from New York.

 

May 23, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/us/politics/trump-crypto-dinner-attendees.html

 

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, a lawyer for Justice Clarence Thomas and a former basketball star, according to a guest list obtained by The New York Times and social media posts.

 

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 Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. 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.

 

Matthew Liu, co-founder of cryptocurrency company Origin, and former project manager at YouTube, was seen at the White House on his way to the V.I.P. tour. After the tour, he reached out to a reporter to confirm his attendance. “There have been recent unsubstantiated allegations of foreign attendees attempting to buy influence with the president, and there was absolutely zero evidence of this at the event,” he said in an email to The Times. “While there were attendees from both the U.S. and abroad, the central theme of the event was growing our industry together and working with intelligent, fair and innovation-friendly U.S. regulators.”

 

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 Action. 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.

 

Daniel Nizar Boubes was charged with drug-related crimes in Orange County, Calif., and given two years of probation, court records show. “I was a drug addict for years, and that’s what that’s all about,” Mr. Boubes said in a phone interview Friday. He said he has since changed his life, and took an interest in crypto. A spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said Mr. Boubes pleaded guilty to five felony counts, including two counts of bringing a controlled substance into a jail or prison, and was sentenced to two years’ probation. She said the case was dismissed in 2022 after he successfully completed probation.

 

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.

 

Tony Yacoub lists himself on LinkedIn as president of T and A Builders, a general contractor in Downey, Calif. The Times identified him because his company email address was included in a list of the event’s attendees. He did not respond to requests for comment sent via email or LinkedIn.

 

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.

 

Aleksander Michal Kloda, founder of Nickel Digital Asset Management, who describes himself on his LinkedIn account as a “blockchain enthusiast and crypto algorithmic trader.”

 

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.

 

Jiawei Wang contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

 

David A. Fahrenthold is a Times investigative reporter writing about nonprofit organizations. He has been a reporter for two decades.

 

Eric Lipton is a Times investigative reporter, who digs into a broad range of topics from Pentagon spending to toxic chemicals.

 

David Yaffe-Bellany writes about the crypto industry from New York. He can be reached at davidyb@nytimes.com.

 

Elena Shao is a reporter and graphics editor based in New York.

 

Dylan Freedman is a machine-learning engineer and journalist working on a team at The Times that leverages A.I. for reporting.