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Protesters Hold "America Is Not For Sale" Rally Outside Trump National Golf Club
US Sen. Jeff Merkley participated in a protest outside Trump National Golf Club while President Trump hosted a dinner for his top meme coin holders (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

About last night’s $TRUMP dinner: Protestors, $100,000 watches, and excited attendees

Donald Trump arrived by helicopter to greet the top holders of his meme coin but didn’t stay long.

Last evening, President Trump held the much-hyped and controversial dinner at the Trump National Golf Club for the top 220 holders of the trump token.

The top 25 holders (two of whom Sherwood News spoke with before the event) were also rewarded with “an ultra-exclusive private VIP reception with the President” and a “Special Tour.”

Attendees, who in total contributed $148 million to attend the dinner, were greeted by protestors including Sen. Jeff Merkley screaming “shame, shame” and “America’s not for sale.”

Speaking of attendees, Tron’s Justin Sun, the top $TRUMP holder, narrated the event with multiple X posts, including videos and pictures of the dinner.  

Sun, born in China, is also a citizen of Grenada, and is no stranger to Trump’s crypto projects — he’s World Liberty Financial’s largest single investor as well.

He reiterated how “excited” he was and posted a string of “thank you” to Trump on X, revealing that he had been awarded a “Trump Golden Tourbillon watch by Trump.” The gold watch, “decorated with 122 diamonds,” is worth $100,000 according to the website. One assumes this watch had Trump spelled correctly, as opposed to some of the lowly $640 versions

Pseudonymous Ice, founder of MemeCore, second on the $TRUMP leaderboard, also posted pictures of himself leaving the party, “ready for the night,” with a meme-based mask which he kept on through much of the event. He also seems to have gotten a watch

MemeCore Chief Business Development Officer Cherry Hsu told Sherwood that his attendance was not “tied to any political agenda,” but was to represent “the power of memes.”

Ogle, pseudonymous cofounder of blockchain ecosystem Glue and a cybersecurity adviser to WLFI, who told Sherwood he was attending out of curiosity, posted a picture of Trump with the caption, “An historic evening for crypto and the USA.”

Other attendees included retired NBA star Lamar Odom, who posted a video of himself arriving at the dinner, saying he was “fired up.” He also plugged the meme coin he launched earlier this month, $ODOM, which “stands for sobriety, discipline, and rebirth.”

Additional guests posting pictures included Magic Eden CEO Jack Lu and BitMart CEO Sheldon Xia.

Trump arrived in a helicopter, gave a 15-minute speech, “barely spoke to attendees,” and “promptly left at the conclusion of his remarks,” according to NBC News.

“We have some of the smartest minds anywhere in the world right here in this room,” he told the audience. 

The menu included an organic field green salad, filet mignon, pan-seared halibut, and lava cake. It seems attendees also received a hat.

The $TRUMP token, launched on the eve of the inauguration, is down over 72% from its all-time high on January 19.

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28

The decentralized finance ecosystem had a brutal April, logging the highest monthly number of exploits ever at 28 hacks, with exploiters siphoning off a total of $635.2 million, data from DefiLlama shows. 

The two largest exploits in April occurred on ethereum-based protocol KelpDAO and solana-native trading venue Drift. The incidents rattled on-chain users, as the total value locked in DeFi across all networks dropped from a monthly high of $99.5 billion to $84.3 billion on Friday. 

“It’s a real problem, and if AI proponents (thinking specifically of Anthropic’s claims about Mythos) are to be believed, it’s only going to get worse,” according to Fredrick Collins, CEO of crypto analytics platform Velo.xyz. Collins argued that these exploits act as a significant limiter of institutional appeal, pointing to TheBlock’s report last week that JPMorgan held a similar view. 

“It’s simple — for many people, having any chance that you lose your entire investment or balance in something supposed to be ‘safe’ is too much to bear,” Collins told Sherwood News. 

However, not everyone thinks the recent hacks will curb interest from institutions. Nicolai Søndergaard, a research analyst at blockchain data firm Nansen, said to Sherwood, “I do not think these hacks will be a limit to institutional capital given the impact of AI and the speed at which threats appear stretch far beyond this industry.” 

Søndergaard continued, “Crypto to me seems to have been hit harder as many projects perhaps wanted to get a product out there quickly and didn’t invest enough in security, even with companies around to audit.” 

DeFi aims to enable internet users to have access to financial services, such as borrowing, lending, and trading, without any centralized intermediaries.

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Riot Platforms rises following Q1 revenue beat

The bitcoin miner turned data center operator released first-quarter earnings that surpassed expectations for revenue. Shares built on strong gains from Thursday’s session in after-hours trading following the results.

Riot Platforms reported:

  • Q1 revenue of $167.2 million, growing 3.6% from the same quarter a year ago and surpassing analysts’ expectations of $131 million.

  • A diluted loss per share of $1.44, much worse than analysts’ consensus estimate of a $0.72 loss, which includes unrealized loss on its bitcoin holdings.

The bulk of companys revenue stems from its bitcoin mining activity, which made up $111.9 million in the quarter, while its data center housing revenue stood at $33.2 million, per its press release.

The first quarter of 2026 marks an inflection point for Riot. CFO Jason Chung said on Thursday in the firms Q1 earnings conference call, With the delivery of our first 5 megawatts to AMD this quarter, Riot is now an active data center operator, and for the first time, our top line now includes contracted lease revenue from an investment-grade tenant.

The earnings report comes the same week the company announced amending its $200 million credit agreement with Coinbase by replacing a floating interest rate with a fixed rate, according to an SEC filing dated on Monday.

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