Inside the first Crypto Ball: Snoop, the Treasury Secretary—and a $70 billion memecoin surprise from Trump

Leo Schwartz

<p>An excited murmur began to spread just before Snoop Dogg took the stage. Adorned in tuxedos and floor-length gowns, the elite of the crypto world passed along the news: President-elect Trump, the absent guest of honor for the celebration, had just taken to social media to <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/01/18/trump-memecoin-crypto-7-billion-solana-president-inauguration/">launch</a> his very own memecoin. Around the end of Snoop&#8217;s set, the <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/price/official-trump">Trump coin</a> had crossed a market cap of $1 billion, a fitting climax to a first-of-its-kind inauguration party titled the Crypto Ball.</p><div class="paywall-selector"></div><div class="paywall">



<p>For the guests at Friday&#8217;s black-tie affair, hosted at the neoclassical Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium just blocks from the White House, the party was a victory lap. After years of pariah status under a hostile Biden Administration, the industry waged a successful political campaign to elect crypto-friendly politicians, including President-elect Trump. Now, the industry is enjoying a once-unimaginable level of power and respect in Washington, D.C.</p>



<p>Tickets for the gala ranged from $2,500 to $1 million, with two separate tiered VIP rooms, including a balcony overlooking the crowd, leading several attendees to whisper that it felt &#8220;like the &#8216;Hunger Games.'&#8221;</p>



<p>Trump did not attend the Crypto Ball, but many of his important allies made an appearance, including the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson (R-La.), and—fitting for an industry built on a new form of money—Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick.</p>



<p>The new political royalty rubbed shoulders with their counterparts in the crypto sector, including <a href="https://fortune.com/company/coinbase/" target="_blank">Coinbase</a> founder Brian Armstrong, Gemini cofounders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and MicroStrategy cofounder Michael Saylor. Special guests included Tigran Gambaryan, the star IRS crypto investigator-turned-Binance executive who spent eight months detained in Nigerian prison before the Biden administration secured his release.</p>



<p>&#8220;The reign of terror against crypto is over,&#8221; venture capitalist and incoming Crypto and AI czar David Sacks told the assembled crowd. &#8220;The beginning of innovation in America for crypto has just begun.&#8221;</p>



<p>The overall mood was ebullient as the audience took in performances not just from Snoop Dogg but also Rick Ross and Soulja Boy, who performed his classic &#8220;Crank That&#8221; to end the night. At the same time, the first Crypto Ball produced quiet unease as the blockchain crowd—an industry born out of the radical anti-government philosophy of <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/price/bitcoin">Bitcoin, </a>and one that is still rife with rampant scams—digests what it means to be part of the government itself.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Make Bitcoin Great Again</h2>



<p>Despite the exultant atmosphere—with (apparently fake) Trump-branded slippers handed out alongside &#8220;Make Bitcoin Great Again&#8221; hats—some cautioned the crypto industry has experienced similar heights before and fallen hard not long after. The 2021 Bitcoin conference in Miami, where Paris <a href="https://fortune.com/company/hilton-worldwide-holdings/" target="_blank">Hilton</a> performed a DJ set and a company set a dumpster of Venezuelan bolivars aflame, served as a cautionary peak before the following year&#8217;s rapid collapse.</p>



<p>One attendee, gazing out at the revelry, remarked that the affair reminded them of a Shakespeare line from Romeo and Juliet quoted in the <a href="https://fortune.com/company/hbo/" target="_blank">HBO</a> show Westworld: &#8220;These violent delights have violent ends.&#8221;</p>


<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-src="https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/IMG_1573-e1737228945193.jpg?w=768&#038;h=1025" alt="" class="lazyload wp-image-4123240" src="https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/IMG_1573-e1737228945193.jpg?w=768&#038;h=1025" width="768" height="1025" original-width="1440" original-height="1921"><div class="image-credit">Photo by Leo Schwartz</div></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The $70 billion memecoin</h2>



<p>And indeed there are plenty of signs that, despite crypto&#8217;s newfound political respectability, many of the dynamics that made it so notorious in the first place have not gone away. That includes the recent debacle surrounding TikTok flash-in-the-pan <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/12/04/hawk-tuah-girl-haliey-welch-launches-crypto-memecoin-solana/">Hawk Tuah girl</a>, aka Haliey Welch, who sought to parlay her fleeting fame into a cryptocurrency. In December, Welch launched a Hawk Tuah memecoin that shot up to $500 million in market cap—before quickly imploding after it emerged that crooked insiders had rigged the project into a <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/12/10/hawk-tuah-memecoin-launch-haliey-welch-pump-dump-rug-pull/">pump-and-dump scheme</a>.</p>



<p>Then there are the ethical and legal concerns surrounding Trump&#8217;s new memecoin. The surprise launch shot to a $70 billion fully diluted market cap as of Sunday morning and stands to enrich the President-elect and his family enormously, even as the project has shared few details about its future plans or business case. Is blockchain technology destined to reshape the world&#8217;s financial plumbing, or will it always be resigned to get-rich-quick schemes that end in disastrous fashion?</p>



<p>But for the few hours of celebration, the thorny questions about crypto&#8217;s future were set aside as guests took in Snoop Dogg&#8217;s set, which included his own rendition of Journey&#8217;s Don&#8217;t Stop Believin&#8217;. As the party wrapped up, waiters walked around with trays of macarons and mango cheesecake bites before bringing out one last surprise. It was a Trump favorite: McDonald&#8217;s hamburgers and french fries.</p></div>

The crypto industry gathered ahead of the presidential inauguration to celebrate its staggering victory in the 2024 elections.

Learn more about all things crypto with short, easy-to-read lesson cards. Click here for <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/crash-course/">Fortune's Crypto Crash Course</a>.

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