Some thoughts about the $Trump crypto dinner, and the hypocrisy of the critics of it - The criticism I'm seeing over the dinner for the top 200+ $trump holders conveniently ignores many decades of presidents coming to dinners where the attendees are wealthy and/or well-connected. There's nothing new here, but some in politics and media are trying to pretend this is some novel "grift" that DJT invented. The difference here is that in this case, the president doesn't even directly get a financial benefit! Just last year there were democratic fundraising dinners where the tickets cost $35,000+ to go to, and the money went directly to the campaign to elect a person. But with the $trump dinner, there's no cost to go to the event - there's just a requirement that you hold a token. That token has a chance of making a positive return, something previously impossible in situations where donors get access to a dinner, but once the dinner is done, the money definitely isn't coming back. One could argue "well, Trump's family business is in the crypto space, so he benefits from this." But would that same argument be coming up ad nauseum if he went to a dinner for those who are in the Florida or NYC Realtors associations? We know Trump has been a real estate guy his whole life, so theoretically there would be a benefit to this kind of dinner to him indirectly too, but something tells me the critics wouldn't be quite as loud when the Realtors got together as they are with crypto folks. You can call it ad hominem, but I think the public criticism is more a critique of the president himself and of crypto as an industry. People are and will remain jelly of those who have put the time and effort into figuring out how crypto works and have done well because of it. People are and will remain upset that Trump is in office. People are and will remain afraid of change and new ways of thinking, and will criticize and attack those who believe in and try to push new paradigms.