Memecoin Menu Mistake? 🍽️
$TRUMP dinner gets underwhelming Yelp reviews
In this week’s edition of The Context, we talk about President Trump latest crypto play, memecoins as a web3 onramp, and Circle’s path to going public.
[$TRUMP Steaks 🥩]
Donald Trump’s gala last weekend for the top 220 holders of his $TRUMP memecoin received criticism for being unethical — and for the food being inedible. But days later, the president charged ahead with his latest crypto endeavor.
What Media Said 🧑💻:
Many attendees stayed anonymous, while others were industry insiders like TRON founder Justin Sun. One very public attendee was influencer Nicholas Pinto, who complained to Wired, CNBC, and the Wall Street Journal about the food (it “sucked”), security (”lax”), the lack of access to Trump (he gave a speech, then left), and his fellow attendees (”lots of people didn’t even hold the coin anymore; they were checking their phones during dinner to see if the price moved.”)
Outside the dinner, the main complaint was corruption, noted MacKenzie Sigalos (CNBC). Politicians joined protesters outside the gates as Sun, the top holder, got face time with the president…a few months after Trump’s SEC paused fraud charges against him.
After the U.S. holiday weekend, Trump Media announced it would take “a page from the investment strategy made famous by Michael Saylor’s company Strategy,” wrote Matthew Goldstein (New York Times). It’s selling shares of itself along with convertible bonds so it can buy $2.5B in Bitcoin. One financial observer noted that this pivot comes as Truth Social struggles to grow: the company’s stock price is down 31% since the start of the year.
PR Perspective 🔎:
Many of the mainstream media headlines focused on the menu—”airline food”, “dud dinner”, “Walmart steak”—but most cited just one attendee, Pinto, and you should take his views with a grain of salt. The 25-year-old also told WSJ he was hoping for Big Macs. But, seriously, who hasn’t gone to a crypto conference and compared notes on which side event had the best spread? The difference is that most of those events are FREE. Don’t feel like you have to have 5-star catering to host a worthwhile event. It’s only when you’re throwing paid events that you have to dial up the food expenditure…because just one unsatisfied customer can lead to bad PR.
[Memecoin Manifesto ✍️]
Crypto exchange Gemini released its 2025 Global State of Crypto report, which discussed memecoin adoption.
What Media Said 🧑💻:
The report had plenty of data about crypto adoption, ownership, and sentiment, wrote Katherine Ross (Blockworks), but the most interesting bits are about memecoins, which “seem to be working as an onramp for investors.” Over 90% of memecoin owners say they also hold other crypto.
That’s right, said Jona Jaupi (The Defiant). And in the U.S., over 30% of people who hold both memecoins and other crypto say they bought memecoins first. In fact, per the report, memecoins are one of two key adoption drivers, the other being President Trump’s support of crypto, as exemplified by the administration’s creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Need proof that memecoins are big time? A Solana memecoin based on Labubu dolls surged in value by nearly 6,000% in two weeks after customers had trouble getting hold of the real version, reported Ryan S. Gladwin (Decrypt). One retailer even stopped selling the dolls due to customer fights. So buyers turned to the closest digital approximation.
PR Perspective 🔎:
Much of this week’s memecoin coverage wasn’t of an event, but of a report. Publishing research or data you have access to — especially if you’re able to package it with visuals — is a great way to build a public image. Think of Chainalysis’ annual crypto crime reports or a16z’s State of Crypto, both of which drive media conversations and get good PR for their companies.
[IPO a Go ⭕]
A week ago, payments firm (and USDC issuer) Circle was reportedly listening to offers from Coinbase and Ripple to buy it. On Tuesday, it officially announced plans to go public.
What Media Said 🧑💻:
The company is selling 24 million shares for between $24 to $26 a share, reported Helen Partz (Cointelegraph). It puts its value at $6.7B, which is lower than the $9B valuation of an aborted 2022 deal to go public.
Its most recent plan to go public was put on hold due to “macroeconomic uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariff plans last month,” wrote Jose Pizzolato (American Banker). “Circle's long-awaited IPO spells good news for the wider cryptocurrency and stablecoin market, which has been eagerly awaiting clearer federal regulation from the GENIUS Act.”
A few heretofore unknown details about Circle’s January purchase of Hashnote emerged from the IPO filings, wrote RT Watson (The Block). It bought the “tokenization startup” for almost $100M. Hashnote employees stand to gain up to 1.8 million shares of Circle from the deal.
PR Perspective 🔎:
Circle is advancing on an IPO in lockstep with the stablecoin bills advancing through Congress. Its ability, either intentionally or not, to stay in the news through multiple cycles may make it synonymous with stablecoins to a non-crypto-native audience.
[Tweet of The Week]
Credit: @ProofofIntern
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The usual disclaimer: This newsletter collates the main themes and headlines of the week in DeFi/crypto/metaverse/Web3/NFT land and tries to provide unbiased context. It's aimed at anyone who wants to keep an eye on the space. It's put together by a team at YAP and doesn't contain any promotion of our clients (if one is mentioned, we'll flag that).
The team: Founder Samantha Yap and consulting editor Jeff Benson, Andrew Wickerson, Nathalie Larrea, Meghna Dembla, Samvidha Sharma, Trisha Goswami and Shajar Qureshi. Your feedback is, as always, welcome. Ping us at thecontext@yapglobal.com. Old newsletters can be found here.
This newsletter is prepared by YAP Global, an international PR Consultancy focusing on helping cryptocurrency, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) and brands through impactful storytelling. Find out more about us here.