Many don’t like it, but (almost) everybody agrees it’s the future.“Vibe Coding” is everywhere. Tools and game engines are implementing AI-assisted coding, vibe coding interest skyrocketed on Google search, on social media, everybody claims to build apps and games in minutes, while the comment section gets flooded with angry developers calling out the pile of garbage code that will never be shipped.A screenshot from Andrej Karpathy with the original “definition” of Vibe CodingBUT, how do professionals feel about it?This is what I will cover in this article. We will look at:How people react to the term vibe coding,How their attitude differs based on who they are and their professional experienceThe reason for their stance towards “vibe coding” (with direct quotes)How they feel about the impact “vibe coding” will have in the next 5 yearsIt all started with this survey on LinkedIn. I have always been curious about how technology can support creatives and I believe that the only way to get a deeper understanding is to go beyond buzzwords and ask the hard questions. That’s why for over a year, I’ve been conducting weekly interviews with both the founders developing these tools and the creatives utilising them. If you want to learn their journeys, I’ve gathered their insights and experiences on my blog called XR AI Spotlight.Driven by the same motives and curious about people’s feelings about “vibe coding”, I asked a simple question: How does the term “Vibe Coding” make you feel?Original LinkedIn poll by Gabriele RomagnoliIn just three days, the poll collected 139 votes and it was clear that most responders didn’t have a good “vibe” about it. The remaining half was equally split between excitement and no specific feeling.But who are these people? What is their professional background? Why did they respond the way they did?Curious, I created a more comprehensive survey and sent it to everyone who voted on the LinkedIn poll.The survey had four questions:Select what describes you best: developers, creative, non-creative professionalHow many years of experience do you have? 1–5, 6–10, 11–15 or 16+Explain why the term “vibe coding” makes you feel excited/neutral/dismissive?Do you think “vibe coding” will become more relevant in the next 5 years?: It’s the future, only in niche use cases, unlikely, no idea)In a few days, I collected 62 replies and started digging into the findings, and that’s when I finally started understanding who took part in the initial poll.The audienceWhen characterising the audience, I refrained from adding too many options because I just wanted to understand:If the people responding were the ones making stuffWhat percentage of makers were creatives and what developersI was happy to see that only 8% of respondents were non-creative professionals and the remaining 92% were actual makers who have more “skin in the game“ with almost a 50/50 split between creatives and developers. There was also a good spread in the degree of professional experience of the respondents, but that’s where things started to get surprising.Respondents are mostly “makers” and show a good variety in professional experienceWhen creating 2 groups with people who have more or less than 10 years of experience, it is clear that less experienced professionals skew more towards a neutral or negative stance than the more experienced group.Experienced professionals are more positive and open to vibe codingThis might be because senior professionals see AI as a tool to accelerate their workflows, while more juniors perceive it as a competitor or threat.I then took out the non-professional creatives and looked at the attitude of these 2 groups. Not surprisingly, fewer creatives than developers have a negative attitude towards “vibe coding” (47% for developers Vs 37% for creatives), but the percentage of creatives and developers who have a positive attitude stays almost constant. This means that creatives have a more indecisive or neutral stance than developers.Creatives have a more positive attitude to vibe coding than developersWhat are people saying about “vibe coding”?As part of the survey, everybody had the chance to add a few sentences explaining their stance. This was not a compulsory field, but to my surprise, only 3 of the 62 left it empty (thanks everybody). Before getting into the sentiment analysis, I noticed something quite interesting while filtering the data. People with a negative attitude had much more to say, and their responses were significantly longer than the other group. They wrote an average of 59 words while the others barely 37 and I think is a good indication of the emotional investment of people who want to articulate and explain their point. Let’s now look at what the different groups of people replied.😍 Patterns in Positive Responses to “Vibe Coding”Positive responders often embraced vibe coding as a way to break free from rigid programming structures and instead explore, improvise, and experiment creatively.“It puts no pressure on it being perfect or thorough.”“Pursuing the vibe, trying what works and then adapt.”“Coding can be geeky and laborious… ‘vibing’ is quite nice.”This perspective repositions code not as rigid infrastructure, but something that favors creativity and playfulness over precision.Several answers point to vibe coding as a democratizing force opening up coding to a broader audience, who want to build without going through the traditional gatekeeping of engineering culture.“For every person complaining… there are ten who are dabbling in code and programming, building stuff without permission.”“Bridges creative with technical perfectly, thus creating potential for independence.”This group often used words like “freedom,” “reframing,” and “revolution.”.😑 Patterns in Neutral Responses to “Vibe Coding”As shown in the initial LinkedIn poll, 27% of respondents expressed mixed feelings. When going through their responses, they recognised potential and were open to experimentation but they also had lingering doubts about the name, seriousness, and future usefulness.“It’s still a hype or buzzword.”“I have mixed feelings of fascination and scepticism.”“Unsure about further developments.”They were on the fence and were often enthusiastic about the capability, but wary of the framing.Neutral responders also acknowledged that complex, polished, or production-level work still requires traditional approaches and framed vibe coding as an early-stage assistant, not a full solution.“Nice tool, but not more than autocomplete on steroids.”“Helps get setup quickly… but critical thinking is still a human job.”“Great for prototyping, not enough to finalize product.”Some respondents were indifferent to the term itself, viewing it more as a label or meme than a paradigm shift. For them, it doesn’t change the substance of what’s happening.“At the end of the day they are just words. Are you able to accomplish what’s needed?”“I think it’s been around forever, just now with a new name.”These voices grounded the discussion in the terminology and I think they bring up a very important point that leads to the polarisation of a lot of the conversations around “vibe coding”.🤮 Patterns in Negative Responses to “Vibe Coding”Many respondents expressed concern that vibe coding implies a casual, unstructured approach to coding. This was often linked to fears about poor code quality, bugs, and security issues.“Feels like building a house without knowing how electricity and water systems work.”“Without fundamental knowledge… you quickly lose control over the output.”The term was also seen as dismissive or diminishing the value of skilled developers. It really rubbed people the wrong way, especially those with professional experience.“It downplays the skill and intention behind writing a functional, efficient program.”“Vibe coding implies not understanding what the AI does but still micromanaging it.”Like for “neutral” respondents, there’s a strong mistrust around how the term is used (especially on social media) where it’s seen as fueling unrealistic expectations or being pushed by non-experts.“Used to promote coding without knowledge.”“Just another overhyped term like NFTs or memecoins.”“It feels like a joke that went too far.”Ultimately, I decided to compare attitudes that are excited (positive) and accepting (neutral) of vibe coding vs. those that reject or criticise it. After all, even among people who were neutral, there was a general acceptance that vibe coding has its place. Many saw it as a useful tool for things like prototyping, creative exploration, or simply making it easier to get started. What really stood out, though, was the absence of fear that was very prominent in the “negative” group and saw vibe coding as a threat to software quality or professional identity.People in the neutral and positive groups generally see potential. They view it as useful for prototyping, creative exploration, or making coding more accessible, but they still recognise the need for structure in complex systems. In contrast, the negative group rejects the concept outright, and not just the name, but what it stands for: a more casual, less rigorous approach to coding. Their opinion is often rooted in defending software engineering as a disciplined craft… and probably their job.😍 “As long as you understand the result and the process, AI can write and fix scripts much faster than humans can.”🤮 “It’s a joke. It started as a joke… but to me doesn’t encapsulate actual AI co-engineering.”On the topic of skill and control, the neutral and positive group sees AI as a helpful assistant, assuming that a human is still guiding the process. They mention refining and reviewing as normal parts of the workflow. The negative group sees more danger, fearing that vibe coding gives a false sense of competence. They describe it as producing buggy or shallow results, often in the hands of inexperienced users.😑 “Critical thinking is still a human job… but vibe coding helps with fast results.”🤮“Vibe-Coding takes away the very features of a good developer… logical thinking and orchestration are crucial.”Culturally, the divide is clear. The positive and neutral voices often embrace vibe coding as part of a broader shift, welcoming new types of creators and perspectives. They tend to come from design or interdisciplinary backgrounds and are more comfortable with playful language. On the other hand, the negative group associates the term with hype and cringe, criticising it as disrespectful to those who’ve spent years honing their technical skills.😍“It’s about playful, relaxed creation — for the love of making something.”🤮Creating a lot of unsafe bloatware with no proper planning.”What’s the future of “Vibe Coding”?The responses to the last question were probably the most surprising to me. I was expecting that the big scepticism towards vibe coding would align with the scepticism on its future, but that was not the case. 90% of people still see “vibe coding” becoming more relevant overall or in niche use cases.Vibe coding is here to stayOut of curiosity, I also went back to see if there was any difference based on professional experience, and that’s where we see the more experienced audience being more conservative. Only 30% of more senior Vs 50% of less experienced professionals see vibe coding playing a role in niche use cases and 13 % Vs only 3% of more experienced users don’t see vibe coding becoming more relevant at all.More experienced professionals are less likely to think Vibe Coding is the futureThere are still many open questions. What is “vibe coding” really? For whom is it? What can you do with it?To answer these questions, I decided to start a new survey you can find here. If you would like to further contribute to this research, I encourage you to participate and in case you are interested, I will share the results with you as well.The more I read or learn about this, I feel “Vibe Coding” is like the “Metaverse”:Some people hate it, some people love it.Everybody means something differentIn one form or another, it is here to stay.What professionals really think about “Vibe Coding” was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On Thursday evening, US president Donald Trump attended a private banquet with 200 of the largest investors in his personal crypto coin. Here's what happened.

By AJ Dellinger Published May 23, 2025 | Comments (0) | President Trump speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference © Brett Carlsen/Bloomberg Last night, Donald Trump hosted 220 of the biggest suckers you know for dinner. As part of a promotion for his cryptocurrency memecoin $TRUMP, the President of the United States let the top bag holders of his coin come hang out, including offering a private VIP reception with the 25 biggest “investors.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the 220 who received invites spent a cumulative $148 million buying up $TRUMP before the event. The event, which was held at the Trump National Golf Club Washington DC in Potomac Falls, Virginia, was a real who’s who of people who make you go “I think I’ve heard of that person.” Perhaps the most famous person in the room was former NBA player Lamar Odom, who is now promoting his own memecoin. Others at the dinner included Brendan McCafferty, a guy CNN rather savagely called a “self-described media executive,” and Jeffrey Zirlin of the failed Axie Infinity game that got hacked for $600 million. The Wall Street Journal noted that many of the attendees were foreigners, many of whom are big players in the crypto space. Others were looking to influence American policy—like Javier Selgas, the CEO of shipping company Freight Technologies, who made headlines by announcing plans to buy up $TRUMP to get a seat next to the president and try to advocate for easing tariffs. The biggest mark of the night, though, was Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto mogul who has made himself a bit of a central figure in the Trump crypto cinematic universe. Sun faced charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly manipulating the price of his cryptocurrency $TRON. Earlier this year, Sun purchased $75 million worth of tokens from World Liberty Financial, the “decentralized finance protocol” run by Trump’s kids, and found his charges dropped. Sun was identified as the top holder of $TRUMP at the dinner event, holding about $18 million worth of the memecoin, and was awarded a “Trump Golden Tourbillion” watch, according to CNN. By all accounts, the attendees did not get their money’s worth out of the event. YouTuber CoffeeZilla, an investigative journalist in the crypto space, said he was told by attendees that the event was disappointing and “wack.” Christoph Heuermann, a “serial entrepreneur” who attended the event, said in an Instagram post that Trump gave a 20-minute speech and “didn’t interact with the crowd other than enjoying being celebrated. Even VIP token holders (I know some) couldn’t speak or even shake hands with the president.” Don’t worry, though: If you thought that was meant as a criticism of the whole charade, it wasn’t. “It was still well worth it to experience the president live and watch his mightily secured arrival and departure,” Heuermann wrote. Trump’s short speech—which he made in front of the official presidential seal despite the White House claiming it was a “private” event—seemed to be a classic rambling “weave” of an address, recounting his 2024 presidential election victory and bragging about closing the southern border in between the occasion bit of red meat tossed to the crypto crowd, according to CNN. “The Biden administration persecuted crypto innovators, and we’re bringing them back into the USA where they belong,” he told the audience, per Fox News. As Trump welcomed the folks who are actively lining his pockets, protesters stood outside the gates of the Trump National Golf Club, denouncing the event as evidence of corruption and demanding the full guest list be released, according to the New York Times. Democrats have launched several efforts to force the President (and other politicians) to divest from cryptocurrency so they cannot use their office to profit through promotions like this. But until one of those bills actually goes somewhere, it seems like there are still plenty of people out there willing to give Trump money in exchange for little more than clout (and maybe a pardon down the line, if needed). Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By Vanessa Taylor Published May 23, 2025 By Lucas Ropek Published May 23, 2025 By Matt Novak Published May 22, 2025 By AJ Dellinger Published May 22, 2025 By Matt Novak Published May 22, 2025 By Ellyn Lapointe Published May 21, 2025

Since the Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui was released from prison in 2022, he has sought to make a scientific comeback and to repair his reputation after a three-year incarceration for illegally creating the world’s first gene-edited children.  While he has bounced between cities, jobs, and meetings with investors, one area of visible success on his come-back trail has been his X.com account, @Jiankui_He, which has become his main way of spreading his ideas to the world. Starting in September 2022, when he joined the platform, the account stuck to the scientist’s main themes, including promisingposted in August 2024. He also shared mundane images of his daily life, including golf games and his family. But over time, it evolved and started to go viral—first with a series of selfies accompanied by grandiose statements (“Every pioneer or prophet must suffer”), and then, in April of this year, it became particularly outrageous and even troll-like, blasting out bizarre messages (“Good morning bitches. How many embryos have you gene edited today?”). This has left observers unsure what to take seriously. Last month, in reply to MIT Technology Review’s questions about who was responsible for the account’s transformation into a font of clever memes, He emailed us back: “It’s thanks to Cathy Tie.” You may not be familiar with Tie but she’s no stranger to the public spotlight. A former Thiel fellow, she is a partner in the attention-grabbing Los Angeles Project, which promised to create glow-in-the-dark pets. Over the past several weeks, though, the 29-year-old Canadian entrepreneur has started to get more and more attention as the new wife to (and apparent social media mastermind behind) He Jiankui. On April 15, He announced a new venture, Cathy Medicine, that would take up his mission of editing human embryos to create people resistant to diseases like Alzheimer’s or cancer. Then just a few days later, on April 18, He and Tie announced that they got married, posting pictures of themselves in traditional Chinese wedding attire. But now, Tie says that just a month after marrying “the most controversial scientist in the world,” her plans to relocate from Los Angeles to Beijing to be with He are in disarray; she says she’s been denied entry to China and the two “may never see each other again,” as He’s passport is being held by Chinese authorities and he can’t leave the country. Reached by phone in Manila, Tie said authorities in the Philippines intercepted her during a layover on May 17 and told her she couldn’t board a plane to China, where she was born and where she says she has a valid 10-year visa. She claims they didn’t say why but told her she is likely “on a watch list.” (MIT Technology Review could not independently confirm Tie’s account.)  “While I’m concerned about my marriage, I am more concerned about what this means for humanity and the future of science,” Tie posted to her own X account. A match made in gene-editing heaven The romance between He and Tie has been playing out in public over the past several weeks through a series of reveals on He’s X feed, which had already started going viral late last year thanks to his style of posting awkward selfies alongside maxims about the untapped potential of heritable gene editing, or changing people’s DNA when they’re just embryos in an IVF dish.  “Human [sic] will no longer be controlled by Darwin's evolution,” He wrote in March. That post, which showed him standing in an empty lab, gazing into the distance, garnered 9.7 million views. And then, a week later for 13.3 million: “Ethics is holding back scientific innovation and progress.”  In April, the feed started to change even more drastically.  He’s posts became increasingly provocative, with better English and a unique sensibility of online culture. “Stop asking for cat girls. I’m trying to cure disease,” the account posted on April 15. Two days later, the account followed-up: “I literally went to prison for this shit.”  This shift coincided with the development of his romance with Tie. Tie told us she has visited China three times this year, including a three-week stint in April when she and He got married after a whirlwind romance. She bought him a silver wedding ring made up of intertwined DNA strands.  The odd behavior on He’s X feed and the sudden marriage have left followers wondering if they are watching a love story, a new kind of business venture, or performance art. It might be all three.  A wedding photo posted by Tie on Chinese social media platform Rednote shows the couple sitting at a banquet hall, with a small number of guests. MIT Technology Review has been able to identify several people who attended: Cai Xilei, He’s criminal attorney; Liu Haiyan, an investor and former business partner of He; and Darren Zhu, an artist and Thiel fellow who is making a “speculative” documentary about the biophysicist that will blur the boundaries of fiction and reality. In the phone interview, Tie declined to say if she and He are legally married. Tie also confirmed she celebrated a wedding less than one year ago with someone else in California, in July of 2024, but noted they broke up after a few months; she also declined to describe the legal status of that marriage. In the phone call, Tie emphasized that her relationship with He is genuine: “I wouldn’t marry him if I wasn’t in love with him.” An up and comer Years before Tie got into a relationship with He, she was getting plenty of attention in her own right. Soon, she began appearing on the entrepreneurs circuit, a “wunderkind” who was featured on a Forbes “30 Under 30” list in 2018 and was presented as an up-and-coming venture capitalist on CNN that same year. In 2020, she started her second company, Locke Bio, that focuses on online telemedicine. Like Thiel, Tie has also staked out contrarian positions. She’s called mainstream genomics a scam and described entrepreneurship as a way to escape the hidebound practices of academia and bioethics. “Starting companies is my preferred form of art,” she posted in 2022, linking to an interview on CNBC.  By February 2025, Tie was ready to announce another new venture, the Los Angeles Project, a stealth company she had incorporated in 2023 under her legal name, Cheng Cheng Tie. The company, started with the Austin-based biohacker and artist Josie Zayner, says it will try to modify animal embryos, including to make fluorescent glow-in-the-dark rabbits as pets. The Los Angeles Project revels in explicitly transgressive aims for embryo editing, including a plan to add horn genes to horse embryos to make a unicorn. That’s consistent with Zayner’s past stunts, which include injecting herself with CRISPR during a livestream. “This is a company that should not exist,” Zayner said in announcing the newly public project. Although the Los Angeles Project has only a tiny staff with uncertain qualifications, it did raise $1 million from the 1517 fund, a venture group that supports “dropouts” and whose managers previously ran the Thiel Fellowship.  Asked for his assessment of Tie, Michael Gibson, a 1517 partner, said in an email that he thinks Tie is “not just exceptional, but profoundly exceptional.” He sent along a list of observations he’d jotted down about Tie before funding her company, which approvingly noted her “hyper-fluent competence” and “low need for social approval. Thoughts & actions routinely unconventional.”  A comeback story He first gained notoriety in 2018, when he and co-workers at the Southern University of Science & Technology in Shenzhen, injected the CRISPR gene-editor into several viable human embryos, and then transferred these into volunteers, leading to the birth of three girls who he claimed would be resistant to HIV. A subsequent Chinese investigation found he’d practiced medicine illegally while “pursuing fame and fortune.” A court later sentenced him to three years in prison. He has never apologized for his experiments, except to say he acted “too quickly” and to express regret for the trouble he’d caused his former wife and two daughters. (According to a leaked WeChat post by his ex-wife, she divorced him in 2024 “because of a major fault on his side.”) Since his release from prison, He has sought to restart his research and convince people that he should be recognized as the “Chinese Darwin,” not “China’s Frankenstein,” as the press once dubbed him.  But his comeback has been bumpy. He lost a position at Wuchang University of Technology, a small private university in Hubei province, after some negative press. In February 2024, He posted that his application for funding from the Muscular Dystrophy Association was rejected. Last September, he even posted pictures of his torn shirt—which he said was the result of an assault by jealous rivals. One area of clear success, though, was the growing reach of his X profile, which today has ballooned to more than 130,000 followers. And as his public profile rose, some started encouraging He to find ways to cash in. Andrew Hessel, a futurist and synthetic biologist active in US ethics debates, says he tried to get He invited to give a TED Talk. “His story is unique, and I wanted to see his story get more widespread attention, if only as a cautionary tale,” Hessel says. “I think he is a lightning rod for a generation of people working in life sciences.” Later, Hessel says he sent him information on how to join X’s revenue-sharing program. “I said, ‘You have a powerful voice.’ Have you looked into monetization?” Hessel says. By last fall, He was also welcoming visitors to what he called a new lab in Beijing. One person who took him up on the offer was Steve Hsu, a Michigan State physics professor who has started several genetics companies and was visiting Beijing.  They ended up talking for hours. Hsu says that He expressed a desire to move to the US and start a company, and that he shared his idea for conducting a clinical trial of embryo editing in South Africa, possibly for the prevention of HIV.  Hsu says he later arranged an invitation for He to give a lecture in the United States. “You are a little radioactive, but things are opening up,” Hsu told him. But He declined the offer because the Chinese government is holding his passport—a common tactic it uses to restrict the movement of sensitive or high-profile figures—and won’t return it to him. “He doesn’t even know why. He literally doesn’t know,” says Hsu. “According to the law, they should give it back to him.” A curious triangle Despite any plans by He and Tie to advance the idea, creating designer babies is currently illegal in most of the world, including China and the US. Some experts, however, fret that forbidding the technology will only drive it underground and make it attractive to biohackers or scientists outside the mainstream.  That’s one reason Tie’s simultaneous connection to two notable biotech renegades—He and Zayner—is worth watching. “There is clearly a triangle forming in some way,” says Hessel. With Tie stuck outside China, and He being kept inside the country, their new gene-editing venture, Cathy Medicine, faces an uncertain future. Tie has posted previously on Rednote that she was “helping Dr. He open up the U.S. market,” and was planning to return to the US with He for scientific research. But when we spoke on the phone, Tie declined to disclose their next steps and said their predicament means the project is “out of the window now.” But even as the couple remains separated, their social media game is stronger than ever. As she waited in Manila, Tie sought help from friends and followers, even the entire internet. She blasted out a tweet to “crypto people” calling them “too pussy to stand up for things when it matters.” Within hours, someone had created a memecoin called $GENE as a way for the public to support the couple.  On May 20, Tie posted on X claiming that the amount donated to them is now worth almost $2 million. “I may need to retract my last statement about crypto,” wrote Tie.  He’s X account also retweeted to express support: “I only want to reunite with my wife @CathyTie, and continue my gene editing research.” He added the hashtag $GENE.

Since the Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui was released from prison in 2022, he has sought to make a scientific comeback and to repair his reputation after a three-year incarceration for illegally creating the world’s first gene-edited children.  While he has bounced between cities, jobs, and meetings with investors, one area of visible success on his come-back trail has been his X.com account, @Jiankui_He, which has become his main way of spreading his ideas to the world. Starting in September 2022, when he joined the platform, the account stuck to the scientist’s main themes, including promisingposted in August 2024. He also shared mundane images of his daily life, including golf games and his family. But over time, it evolved and started to go viral—first with a series of selfies accompanied by grandiose statements (“Every pioneer or prophet must suffer”), and then, in April of this year, it became particularly outrageous and even troll-like, blasting out bizarre messages (“Good morning bitches. How many embryos have you gene edited today?”). This has left observers unsure what to take seriously. Last month, in reply to MIT Technology Review’s questions about who was responsible for the account’s transformation into a font of clever memes, He emailed us back: “It’s thanks to Cathy Tie.” You may not be familiar with Tie but she’s no stranger to the public spotlight. A former Thiel fellow, she is a partner in the attention-grabbing Los Angeles Project, which promised to create glow-in-the-dark pets. Over the past several weeks, though, the 29-year-old Canadian entrepreneur has started to get more and more attention as the new wife to (and apparent social media mastermind behind) He Jiankui. On April 15, He announced a new venture, Cathy Medicine, that would take up his mission of editing human embryos to create people resistant to diseases like Alzheimer’s or cancer. Then just a few days later, on April 18, He and Tie announced that they got married, posting pictures of themselves in traditional Chinese wedding attire. But now, Tie says that just a month after marrying “the most controversial scientist in the world,” her plans to relocate from Los Angeles to Beijing to be with He are in disarray; she says she’s been denied entry to China and the two “may never see each other again,” as He’s passport is being held by Chinese authorities and he can’t leave the country. Reached by phone in Manila, Tie said authorities in the Philippines intercepted her during a layover on May 17 and told her she couldn’t board a plane to China, where she was born and where she says she has a valid 10-year visa. She claims they didn’t say why but told her she is likely “on a watch list.” (MIT Technology Review could not independently confirm Tie’s account.)  “While I’m concerned about my marriage, I am more concerned about what this means for humanity and the future of science,” Tie posted to her own X account. A match made in gene-editing heaven The romance between He and Tie has been playing out in public over the past several weeks through a series of reveals on He’s X feed, which had already started going viral late last year thanks to his style of posting awkward selfies alongside maxims about the untapped potential of heritable gene editing, or changing people’s DNA when they’re just embryos in an IVF dish.  “Human [sic] will no longer be controlled by Darwin's evolution,” He wrote in March. That post, which showed him standing in an empty lab, gazing into the distance, garnered 9.7 million views. And then, a week later for 13.3 million: “Ethics is holding back scientific innovation and progress.”  In April, the feed started to change even more drastically.  He’s posts became increasingly provocative, with better English and a unique sensibility of online culture. “Stop asking for cat girls. I’m trying to cure disease,” the account posted on April 15. Two days later, the account followed-up: “I literally went to prison for this shit.”  This shift coincided with the development of his romance with Tie. Tie told us she has visited China three times this year, including a three-week stint in April when she and He got married after a whirlwind romance. She bought him a silver wedding ring made up of intertwined DNA strands.  The odd behavior on He’s X feed and the sudden marriage have left followers wondering if they are watching a love story, a new kind of business venture, or performance art. It might be all three.  A wedding photo posted by Tie on Chinese social media platform Rednote shows the couple sitting at a banquet hall, with a small number of guests. MIT Technology Review has been able to identify several people who attended: Cai Xilei, He’s criminal attorney; Liu Haiyan, an investor and former business partner of He; and Darren Zhu, an artist and Thiel fellow who is making a “speculative” documentary about the biophysicist that will blur the boundaries of fiction and reality. In the phone interview, Tie declined to say if she and He are legally married. Tie also confirmed she celebrated a wedding less than one year ago with someone else in California, in July of 2024, but noted they broke up after a few months; she also declined to describe the legal status of that marriage. In the phone call, Tie emphasized that her relationship with He is genuine: “I wouldn’t marry him if I wasn’t in love with him.” An up and comer Years before Tie got into a relationship with He, she was getting plenty of attention in her own right. Soon, she began appearing on the entrepreneurs circuit, a “wunderkind” who was featured on a Forbes “30 Under 30” list in 2018 and was presented as an up-and-coming venture capitalist on CNN that same year. In 2020, she started her second company, Locke Bio, that focuses on online telemedicine. Like Thiel, Tie has also staked out contrarian positions. She’s called mainstream genomics a scam and described entrepreneurship as a way to escape the hidebound practices of academia and bioethics. “Starting companies is my preferred form of art,” she posted in 2022, linking to an interview on CNBC.  By February 2025, Tie was ready to announce another new venture, the Los Angeles Project, a stealth company she had incorporated in 2023 under her legal name, Cheng Cheng Tie. The company, started with the Austin-based biohacker and artist Josie Zayner, says it will try to modify animal embryos, including to make fluorescent glow-in-the-dark rabbits as pets. The Los Angeles Project revels in explicitly transgressive aims for embryo editing, including a plan to add horn genes to horse embryos to make a unicorn. That’s consistent with Zayner’s past stunts, which include injecting herself with CRISPR during a livestream. “This is a company that should not exist,” Zayner said in announcing the newly public project. Although the Los Angeles Project has only a tiny staff with uncertain qualifications, it did raise $1 million from the 1517 fund, a venture group that supports “dropouts” and whose managers previously ran the Thiel Fellowship.  Asked for his assessment of Tie, Michael Gibson, a 1517 partner, said in an email that he thinks Tie is “not just exceptional, but profoundly exceptional.” He sent along a list of observations he’d jotted down about Tie before funding her company, which approvingly noted her “hyper-fluent competence” and “low need for social approval. Thoughts & actions routinely unconventional.”  A comeback story He first gained notoriety in 2018, when he and co-workers at the Southern University of Science & Technology in Shenzhen, injected the CRISPR gene-editor into several viable human embryos, and then transferred these into volunteers, leading to the birth of three girls who he claimed would be resistant to HIV. A subsequent Chinese investigation found he’d practiced medicine illegally while “pursuing fame and fortune.” A court later sentenced him to three years in prison. He has never apologized for his experiments, except to say he acted “too quickly” and to express regret for the trouble he’d caused his former wife and two daughters. (According to a leaked WeChat post by his ex-wife, she divorced him in 2024 “because of a major fault on his side.”) Since his release from prison, He has sought to restart his research and convince people that he should be recognized as the “Chinese Darwin,” not “China’s Frankenstein,” as the press once dubbed him.  But his comeback has been bumpy. He lost a position at Wuchang University of Technology, a small private university in Hubei province, after some negative press. In February 2024, He posted that his application for funding from the Muscular Dystrophy Association was rejected. Last September, he even posted pictures of his torn shirt—which he said was the result of an assault by jealous rivals. One area of clear success, though, was the growing reach of his X profile, which today has ballooned to more than 130,000 followers. And as his public profile rose, some started encouraging He to find ways to cash in. Andrew Hessel, a futurist and synthetic biologist active in US ethics debates, says he tried to get He invited to give a TED Talk. “His story is unique, and I wanted to see his story get more widespread attention, if only as a cautionary tale,” Hessel says. “I think he is a lightning rod for a generation of people working in life sciences.” Later, Hessel says he sent him information on how to join X’s revenue-sharing program. “I said, ‘You have a powerful voice.’ Have you looked into monetization?” Hessel says. By last fall, He was also welcoming visitors to what he called a new lab in Beijing. One person who took him up on the offer was Steve Hsu, a Michigan State physics professor who has started several genetics companies and was visiting Beijing.  They ended up talking for hours. Hsu says that He expressed a desire to move to the US and start a company, and that he shared his idea for conducting a clinical trial of embryo editing in South Africa, possibly for the prevention of HIV.  Hsu says he later arranged an invitation for He to give a lecture in the United States. “You are a little radioactive, but things are opening up,” Hsu told him. But He declined the offer because the Chinese government is holding his passport—a common tactic it uses to restrict the movement of sensitive or high-profile figures—and won’t return it to him. “He doesn’t even know why. He literally doesn’t know,” says Hsu. “According to the law, they should give it back to him.” A curious triangle Despite any plans by He and Tie to advance the idea, creating designer babies is currently illegal in most of the world, including China and the US. Some experts, however, fret that forbidding the technology will only drive it underground and make it attractive to biohackers or scientists outside the mainstream.  That’s one reason Tie’s simultaneous connection to two notable biotech renegades—He and Zayner—is worth watching. “There is clearly a triangle forming in some way,” says Hessel. With Tie stuck outside China, and He being kept inside the country, their new gene-editing venture, Cathy Medicine, faces an uncertain future. Tie has posted previously on Rednote that she was “helping Dr. He open up the U.S. market,” and was planning to return to the US with He for scientific research. But when we spoke on the phone, Tie declined to disclose their next steps and said their predicament means the project is “out of the window now.” But even as the couple remains separated, their social media game is stronger than ever. As she waited in Manila, Tie sought help from friends and followers, even the entire internet. She blasted out a tweet to “crypto people” calling them “too pussy to stand up for things when it matters.” Within hours, someone had created a memecoin called $GENE as a way for the public to support the couple.  On May 20, Tie posted on X claiming that the amount donated to them is now worth almost $2 million. “I may need to retract my last statement about crypto,” wrote Tie.  He’s X account also retweeted to express support: “I only want to reunite with my wife @CathyTie, and continue my gene editing research.” He added the hashtag $GENE.

Since the Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui was released from prison in 2022, he has sought to make a scientific comeback and to repair his reputation after a three-year incarceration for illegally creating the world’s first gene-edited children.  While he has bounced between cities, jobs, and meetings with investors, one area of visible success on his come-back trail has been his X.com account, @Jiankui_He, which has become his main way of spreading his ideas to the world. Starting in September 2022, when he joined the platform, the account stuck to the scientist’s main themes, including promising a more careful approach to his dream of creating more gene-edited children. “I will do it, only after society has accepted it,” he posted in August 2024. He also shared mundane images of his daily life, including golf games and his family. But over time, it evolved and started to go viral—first with a series of selfies accompanied by grandiose statements (“Every pioneer or prophet must suffer”), and then, in April of this year, it became particularly outrageous and even troll-like, blasting out bizarre messages (“Good morning bitches. How many embryos have you gene edited today?”). This has left observers unsure what to take seriously. Last month, in reply to MIT Technology Review’s questions about who was responsible for the account’s transformation into a font of clever memes, He emailed us back: “It’s thanks to Cathy Tie.” You may not be familiar with Tie but she’s no stranger to the public spotlight. A former Thiel fellow, she is a partner in the attention-grabbing Los Angeles Project, which promised to create glow-in-the-dark pets. Over the past several weeks, though, the 29-year-old Canadian entrepreneur has started to get more and more attention as the new wife to (and apparent social media mastermind behind) He Jiankui. On April 15, He announced a new venture, Cathy Medicine, that would take up his mission of editing human embryos to create people resistant to diseases like Alzheimer’s or cancer. Then just a few days later, on April 18, He and Tie announced that they got married, posting pictures of themselves in traditional Chinese wedding attire. But now, Tie says that just a month after marrying “the most controversial scientist in the world,” her plans to relocate from Los Angeles to Beijing to be with He are in disarray; she says she’s been denied entry to China and the two “may never see each other again,” as He’s passport is being held by Chinese authorities and he can’t leave the country. Reached by phone in Manila, Tie said authorities in the Philippines intercepted her during a layover on May 17 and told her she couldn’t board a plane to China, where she was born and where she says she has a valid 10-year visa. She claims they didn’t say why but told her she is likely “on a watch list.” (MIT Technology Review could not independently confirm Tie’s account.)  “While I’m concerned about my marriage, I am more concerned about what this means for humanity and the future of science,” Tie posted to her own X account. A match made in gene-editing heaven The romance between He and Tie has been playing out in public over the past several weeks through a series of reveals on He’s X feed, which had already started going viral late last year thanks to his style of posting awkward selfies alongside maxims about the untapped potential of heritable gene editing, or changing people’s DNA when they’re just embryos in an IVF dish.  “Human [sic] will no longer be controlled by Darwin’s evolution,” He wrote in March. That post, which showed him standing in an empty lab, gazing into the distance, garnered 9.7 million views. And then, a week later for 13.3 million: “Ethics is holding back scientific innovation and progress.”  In April, the feed started to change even more drastically.  He’s posts became increasingly provocative, with better English and a unique sensibility of online culture. “Stop asking for cat girls. I’m trying to cure disease,” the account posted on April 15. Two days later, the account followed-up: “I literally went to prison for this shit.”  This shift coincided with the development of his romance with Tie. Tie told us she has visited China three times this year, including a three-week stint in April when she and He got married after a whirlwind romance. She bought him a silver wedding ring made up of intertwined DNA strands.  The odd behavior on He’s X feed and the sudden marriage have left followers wondering if they are watching a love story, a new kind of business venture, or performance art. It might be all three.  A wedding photo posted by Tie on Chinese social media platform Rednote shows the couple sitting at a banquet hall, with a small number of guests. MIT Technology Review has been able to identify several people who attended: Cai Xilei, He’s criminal attorney; Liu Haiyan, an investor and former business partner of He; and Darren Zhu, an artist and Thiel fellow who is making a “speculative” documentary about the biophysicist that will blur the boundaries of fiction and reality. In the phone interview, Tie declined to say if she and He are legally married. Tie also confirmed she celebrated a wedding less than one year ago with someone else in California, in July of 2024, but noted they broke up after a few months; she also declined to describe the legal status of that marriage. In the phone call, Tie emphasized that her relationship with He is genuine: “I wouldn’t marry him if I wasn’t in love with him.” An up and comer Years before Tie got into a relationship with He, she was getting plenty of attention in her own right. She became a Thiel Fellow in 2015, when she was just 18. That program, started by billionaire Peter Thiel, gave her a grant of $100,000 to drop out of the University of Toronto and start a gene testing company, Ranomics.  Soon, she began appearing on the entrepreneurs circuit, a “wunderkind” who was featured on a Forbes “30 Under 30” list in 2018 and was presented as an up-and-coming venture capitalist on CNN that same year. In 2020, she started her second company, Locke Bio, that focuses on online telemedicine. Like Thiel, Tie has also staked out contrarian positions. She’s called mainstream genomics a scam and described entrepreneurship as a way to escape the hidebound practices of academia and bioethics. “Starting companies is my preferred form of art,” she posted in 2022, linking to an interview on CNBC.  By February 2025, Tie was ready to announce another new venture, the Los Angeles Project, a stealth company she had incorporated in 2023 under her legal name, Cheng Cheng Tie. The company, started with the Austin-based biohacker and artist Josie Zayner, says it will try to modify animal embryos, including to make fluorescent glow-in-the-dark rabbits as pets. The Los Angeles Project revels in explicitly transgressive aims for embryo editing, including a plan to add horn genes to horse embryos to make a unicorn. That’s consistent with Zayner’s past stunts, which include injecting herself with CRISPR during a livestream. “This is a company that should not exist,” Zayner said in announcing the newly public project. Although the Los Angeles Project has only a tiny staff with uncertain qualifications, it did raise $1 million from the 1517 fund, a venture group that supports “dropouts” and whose managers previously ran the Thiel Fellowship.  Asked for his assessment of Tie, Michael Gibson, a 1517 partner, said in an email that he thinks Tie is “not just exceptional, but profoundly exceptional.” He sent along a list of observations he’d jotted down about Tie before funding her company, which approvingly noted her “hyper-fluent competence” and “low need for social approval. Thoughts & actions routinely unconventional.”  A comeback story He first gained notoriety in 2018, when he and co-workers at the Southern University of Science & Technology in Shenzhen, injected the CRISPR gene-editor into several viable human embryos, and then transferred these into volunteers, leading to the birth of three girls who he claimed would be resistant to HIV. A subsequent Chinese investigation found he’d practiced medicine illegally while “pursuing fame and fortune.” A court later sentenced him to three years in prison. He has never apologized for his experiments, except to say he acted “too quickly” and to express regret for the trouble he’d caused his former wife and two daughters. (According to a leaked WeChat post by his ex-wife, she divorced him in 2024 “because of a major fault on his side.”) Since his release from prison, He has sought to restart his research and convince people that he should be recognized as the “Chinese Darwin,” not “China’s Frankenstein,” as the press once dubbed him.  But his comeback has been bumpy. He lost a position at Wuchang University of Technology, a small private university in Hubei province, after some negative press. In February 2024, He posted that his application for funding from the Muscular Dystrophy Association was rejected. Last September, he even posted pictures of his torn shirt—which he said was the result of an assault by jealous rivals. One area of clear success, though, was the growing reach of his X profile, which today has ballooned to more than 130,000 followers. And as his public profile rose, some started encouraging He to find ways to cash in. Andrew Hessel, a futurist and synthetic biologist active in US ethics debates, says he tried to get He invited to give a TED Talk. “His story is unique, and I wanted to see his story get more widespread attention, if only as a cautionary tale,” Hessel says. “I think he is a lightning rod for a generation of people working in life sciences.” Later, Hessel says he sent him information on how to join X’s revenue-sharing program. “I said, ‘You have a powerful voice.’ Have you looked into monetization?” Hessel says. By last fall, He was also welcoming visitors to what he called a new lab in Beijing. One person who took him up on the offer was Steve Hsu, a Michigan State physics professor who has started several genetics companies and was visiting Beijing.  They ended up talking for hours. Hsu says that He expressed a desire to move to the US and start a company, and that he shared his idea for conducting a clinical trial of embryo editing in South Africa, possibly for the prevention of HIV.  Hsu says he later arranged an invitation for He to give a lecture in the United States. “You are a little radioactive, but things are opening up,” Hsu told him. But He declined the offer because the Chinese government is holding his passport—a common tactic it uses to restrict the movement of sensitive or high-profile figures—and won’t return it to him. “He doesn’t even know why. He literally doesn’t know,” says Hsu. “According to the law, they should give it back to him.” A curious triangle Despite any plans by He and Tie to advance the idea, creating designer babies is currently illegal in most of the world, including China and the US. Some experts, however, fret that forbidding the technology will only drive it underground and make it attractive to biohackers or scientists outside the mainstream.  That’s one reason Tie’s simultaneous connection to two notable biotech renegades—He and Zayner—is worth watching. “There is clearly a triangle forming in some way,” says Hessel. With Tie stuck outside China, and He being kept inside the country, their new gene-editing venture, Cathy Medicine, faces an uncertain future. Tie has posted previously on Rednote that she was “helping Dr. He open up the U.S. market,” and was planning to return to the US with He for scientific research. But when we spoke on the phone, Tie declined to disclose their next steps and said their predicament means the project is “out of the window now.” But even as the couple remains separated, their social media game is stronger than ever. As she waited in Manila, Tie sought help from friends and followers, even the entire internet. She blasted out a tweet to “crypto people” calling them “too pussy to stand up for things when it matters.” Within hours, someone had created a memecoin called $GENE as a way for the public to support the couple.  On May 20, Tie posted on X claiming that the amount donated to them is now worth almost $2 million. “I may need to retract my last statement about crypto,” wrote Tie.  He’s X account also retweeted to express support: “I only want to reunite with my wife @CathyTie, and continue my gene editing research.” He added the hashtag $GENE.

Yield Guild Games Association announced that it has expanded into Web3 game publishing with the launch of the causal Degen game LOL Land. With the launch of its first title, LOL Land, Yield Guild Games Association (Yield Guild) has announced YGG Play, a new game publishing unit dedicated to lighthearted, addictive games that embrace the chaos and culture of crypto degeneracy. With YGG Play, the association aims to define a new genre in gaming: Casual Degen. The debut game — a browser-based casual board game featuring members of the Pudgy Penguins community as playable characters — with 116,000 pre-registrations prior to its exclusive launch on Abstract Chain. By playing, collecting points, and unlocking NFTs in LOL Land, players have the chance to win part of a prize pool funded on May 1, valued at $10 million in YGG token rewards. “Over the past four years, we’ve seen and played hundreds of games, and Yield Guild has invested in many of them. Through that experience, we’ve come to know what’s fun, what works and what doesn’t, and that’s led us to develop some very strong opinions on how to best serve the crypto market,” said Gabby Dizon, cofounder of Yield Guild, in a statement. “YGG Play, which is specifically targeting the Casual Degen market, is our expression of everything we’ve learned, starting with our first game, LOL Land.” LOL Land features four thematic boards, each with a unique mechanic: YGG City, Beach Day, Carnival, and Ice World Wonderland — the latter being home to the Pudgy Penguins IP, where players can choose to playable characters based on notable members from Pudgy’s community, including Aaron Teng, Rusk0f, KP, Burnasso, and Orange. Dizon is also a playable game character, and other themes are under development, including Pirate Cove and Parkside Story. The Abstract Chain, the exclusive platform for LOL Land, was created by Igloo Inc., the parent company of Pudgy Penguins. Its consumer-first approach makes it easier for players to get into Web3 games by using chain abstraction and integrating friendlier onboarding mechanisms such as social logins and passkeys. The platform has already succeeded with several launches, including Myriad, Roach Racing Club, and Gacha. The launch also coincides with the YGG token being available on Abstract. “LOL Land is a game built by degens for degens,” said Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins, in a statement. “It takes everything we’ve come to love about playing Web3 games and puts it into a casual pick-up-and-play experience. We’re really excited to be a part of YGG’s first game and its exclusive launch on Abstract.”  LOL Land offers two gameplay modes to suit different player preferences. The free mode allows players to enjoy unlimited rolls at no cost, though it does not include YGG token rewards. In the premium mode, players can purchase premium rolls, with points earned through gameplay eligible for redemption in YGG tokens. LOL Land is only available to players 18 years or older and in certain countries. The game is available to play now at LOL.Land.  I asked Dizon a few questions. In a message to GamesBeat, Dizon said YGG is a guild protocol that provides guilds with a suite of tools to organize onchain. “Our core community’s Discord currently has over 112,000 members and our Guild Advancement Program (GAP) has seen over 300,000 community members use our questing platform,” Dizon said. “Since launching on Base in November last year, we’ve had more than 75 Onchain Guilds sign up for our platform’s pilot. We also have a global network of guilds spanning 11 regions, represented by our guild partners YGG Pilipinas (Philippines), W3GG (Southeast Asia), OLA GG (Latin America), KGeN (India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia), SKYGG (South Korea), YGG Japan, YGG China, AMG DAO (Europe), and NYXL (North America).” Asked why YGG decided to make a game, Dizon said, “We decided to launch our game publishing arm because we want to establish the “Casual Degen” category in Web3 games. With our history and our deep connection to the community and its crypto-native, grassroots, play-first culture, game publishing felt like a natural expansion.” Gabby Dizon is cofounder of YGG. YGG has grown into a hub for players to discover new games and contribute their skills to different projects and ecosystems. Dizon added, “We represent highly skilled communities that can bootstrap the launch of a game by connecting them with dedicated players as well as groups that can provide the services these early-stage projects need like community management, marketing and local events, content creation, education, esports, game testing, and more.” And he said, “YGG is uniquely positioned as a publisher because we know what the community looks for in games and we know where these games need help at launch—we hear it directly from the players. So, expanding into publishing and making the first game ourselves made sense.” I asked Dizon how YGG chose the game. He noted that before he got into crypto and cofounded YGG, he was a game developer for over 20 years. “I was actually building casual games for much of my career. It’s nearly five years since we founded YGG, and we’ve played hundreds of Web3 games and invested in many of them,” Dizon said. “Building our ecosystem and running events like the YGG Play Summit has kept us closely aligned with our community’s interests. We understand what the YGG community wants: playing fun games and enjoying the rewards together.” And he added, “Based on our experience, we also knew that the Web3-native game market is still very underserved. These are the people who aren’t necessarily hardcore gamers but are in crypto for fun — or what we call degens. Hardcore Web3 gamers are actually a very small portion of the total Web3 user base. But the “Casual Degens” — that’s people trading memecoins, minting NFTs, or trading on exchanges — they’re a much larger market. And we know exactly how to target these markets.” Yield Guild Games (YGG) is a global collective of gamers, creators, and builders turning play into opportunity. Known for pioneering the Web3 guild model with the rise of the play-to-earn movement in 2020, YGG laid the foundation for a new kind of digital coordination: a network of onchain groups, each organized around their own purpose, and united by shared values of collaboration, progression, and ownership. Pre-registration is currently ongoing at https://www.lol.land/pre-register. GB Daily Stay in the know! Get the latest news in your inbox daily Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump will sit down for an intimate evening at his Northern Virginia golf club with 220 of his favorite people in the world: a group of cryptocurrency speculators who have spent an estimated $148 million on Trump’s eponymous memecoin, making the president and his associates millions of dollars in the process. Even by Trump’s standards, this dinner will be the culmination of one of the most cartoonish episodes of executive-branch graft in recent memory. Last month, Trump announced that at the end of a predetermined period, he would host an “unforgettable Gala DINNER” for the top 220 holders of $TRUMP, allowing winners to discuss the future of the industry with the “Crypto President” himself. The top 25 token holders would also get to attend an “Exclusive Reception” with Trump, along with a “Special VIP White House Tour.” (Hours after the contest went live, its website was quietly edited to promise the top 25 finishers only a “Special VIP Tour,” with no location specified. It remains unclear whether that event will indeed take place at the White House, or at a golf resort facility of the president’s choice.) The contest’s organizer, a Trump-affiliated LLC called Fight Fight Fight, maintained an online leaderboard of those jockeying for position during the sweepstakes, which ended on May 12. The website also includes helpful information about the dress code (black tie optional) and the plus-one policy (none, because “if you earned a seat at the table, it’s because you earned it”). For Trump, the logistical details were far less important than the chance to juice the market for $TRUMP, which had cratered after launching in January but then spiked by more than 50% when he announced the contest. In the two days that followed, the Trump Organization and its affiliates, which together control roughly 80% of the token’s supply, took in nearly $1 million in trading fees; by the end of the sweepstakes, that number had jumped to $3 million, according to a Washington Post analysis.  In all, the Post estimates that since the coin’s debut four months ago, Trump and company have made $312 million from crypto sales and $43 million in fees. As it turns out, one of the perks of being the person in charge of U.S. cryptocurrency policy is the freedom to profit off of cryptocurrency without fear of meaningful consequences. The details of the frenzy to secure a spot on the leaderboard make clear just how for sale the federal government is right now. Making the top 220, according to Wired, required holding or buying more than 4,000 $TRUMP tokens worth about $55,000 altogether; those who made the VIP list held an average of 325,000 tokens worth a collective $4.3 million. Many of the people who made the cut made their purchases on exchanges that suggest they are non-U.S. residents who jumped at the chance to bend the U.S. president’s ear in a semiprivate setting. Sure enough, although the leaderboard identifies winners only by username and alphanumeric crypto wallet address, among the confirmed attendees are Justin Sun, a Chinese crypto speculator who is, in a wild coincidence, trying to settle civil fraud charges with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission; an Australian crypto entrepreneur who hopes to pitch Trump on adopting an even more industry-friendly regulatory stance; and a to-be-determined representative of MemeCore, a Singapore-based crypto collective that told New York magazine that whomever it sends hopes to ask Trump, “Are you a meme, or the result of one?”  Fight Fight Fight calculated the value of contestants’ holdings based on both the amount of $TRUMP in a wallet and the length of time they’d held it, thus rewarding early investors for their commitment to padding the president’s bottom line. That said, earlier this month, the journalist Molly White found that of the wallets on the leaderboard at the time, 62% started buying $TRUMP only after he dangled the dinner invitation. Once acquiring a floundering memecoin came with a shot at a sit-down with the literal President of the United States, people who were previously uninterested apparently decided to reevaluate their investment priorities. Since the event is closed to the press, there will be no independent coverage of what Trump says to attendees, or what the attendees say to Trump, or even who the attendees are. The entire spectacle amounts to an off-the-record jam session between a bunch of people who have already gotten rich off crypto, brainstorming ways to keep getting rich off crypto. For Trump, the event is only the latest celebration of his whirlwind romance with crypto, which he spent years disparaging before realizing that embracing it could help fast-track his return to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He positioned himself as the pro-crypto candidate on the campaign trail last year, promising to create a national crypto stockpile and appoint industry luminaries to prominent administration roles. In another wild coincidence, around the same time, his adult sons helped launch World Liberty Financial, a crypto project structured to funnel 75% of revenue to the Trump family. WLF was basically a hedge against the results of the 2024 election: Even if Trump lost, he would at least have a new source of income to pay his legal bills. The fact that Trump won that election, of course, has made this alliance even more successful for everyone involved. In the hours before his inauguration, the price of Bitcoin spiked to nearly $110,000, then an all-time high. Demand for World Liberty Financial’s coins exploded, too, especially from foreign investors whom federal law bars from giving directly to presidential campaigns or inaugural funds. (Sun, who will attend Thursday’s dinner, has spent nearly $75 million on WLF tokens, making him its single largest known investor.) More recently, Abu Dhabi announced that it would use a WLF-issued stablecoin, USDI1, for its state-backed investment firm’s $2 billion deal with the crypto exchange Binance—a choice that just so happens to put tens of millions of dollars in the Trump family’s pockets.  In an interview with the New York Times earlier this year, Eric Trump spoke of the family’s pivot to crypto in glowing terms, describing World Liberty Financial as “one of the more successful things we’ve ever done.” The numbers bear this out: In March, Fortune estimated that Trump’s crypto holdings were worth $2.9 billion—not bad for an asset he was dismissing as “not money,” “highly volatile,” and “based on thin air” a few years earlier. Pundits often describe Trump’s involvement in crypto as “unprecedented,” and in a sense, this is right: Given Washington’s enduring obsessions with political scandals and conflicts of interest, traditionally, sitting presidents have not developed active side hustles in industries they have the power to regulate. But Trump has never cared about adhering to norms like this one, because he has always viewed the power of the office he holds primarily in terms of its potential to make him wealthier. He agreed to shake hands with a couple hundred crypto enthusiasts this week for the only reason he has ever done anything: He saw a chance to make money, and no one stopped him from taking it.

US President Donald Trump is set to host a special dinner for the largest holders of his $TRUMP memecoin on May 22. President Trump is reportedly expected to dine with 220 holders of the "Official Trump" token at the Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia. On the heels of the upcoming event, the price of the memecoin surged by over 11 percent to trade at $14.27 (roughly Rs. 1,222) on international exchanges on Wednesday.Meanwhile, a group of US senators and other individuals also plan to protest outside the golf course, accusing the President of using his political influence over the crypto market.Here's What We Know About the EventGuests have received a formal invitation to the event via email. The invite includes details on the dress code as well as timings for the event. All guests will reportedly need to submit to a background check before attending the galaEarlier this month, a Bloomberg report had highlighted that a majority of the top 25 $TRUMP token holders used foreign exchanges to purchase the memecoin, indicating they were based outside of the US.Justin Sun, the owner of the Tron blockchain, is among the VIP attendees of this gala dinner. At 1.4 million token holdings, Sun is listed as the largest holder of the memecoin. Sun confirmed Tuesday that he had received an invite to the event.“I'm excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry,” Sun said in a post on X.Singapore-based crypto startup MemeCore is second on the Trump memecoin leaderboard and a representative from the company is likely to mark their presence, Fortune reported.The 220 dinner guests collectively hold an estimated $147.5 million (roughly Rs. 1,261 crore) worth of the $TRUMP token, that was launched on January 17.Trump Memecoin ProtestRobert Weissman from the nonprofit group Public Citizen is said to be organising the protest outside Trump's dinner venue. Democratic senator Jeff Merkley is also reportedly planning to join the protest.President Trump's son Eric Trump told the press that “most of these people are paid to protest”.At present, the Official Trump token ranks 37th on CoinMarketCap's crypto index. This means that the memecoin with the market cap of $2.86 billion (roughly Rs. 24,467 crore), is currently the 37th largest altcoin in the market. For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Donald Trump, Memecoin, Trump token, Gala Dinner  Radhika Parashar Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More Related Stories

The last six months have been a strange, exhilarating time for crypto. First, there was the so-called “Trump effect”—a surge in crypto prices and on-chain activity triggered by the then president-elect’s vocal support of crypto. Then came the viral “Hawk Tuah” meme, which somehow alchemized into a crypto memecoin that rocketed in value, pulled headlines, and emptied wallets in equal measure.  For many first-time crypto users, these moments were their gateway into the blockchain. Wallets were downloaded. Tokens were swapped. Twitter (now X) feeds were flooded with strange new lingo: HODL, degen, DYOR. It was a wild ride. For most newcomers, the experience probably felt like trying to join a conversation in a foreign language while riding a rollercoaster.  As the leader of a nonprofit dedicated to educating everyday Americans about crypto, I welcome this influx of interest. Crypto, at its best, can democratize financial access, create transparency, and offer new tools for digital empowerment. But hype cycles also bring risk: not just of financial loss, but of alienation and misunderstanding. It’s time we decouple the signal from the noise.  Crypto isn’t just for bros—and it never was  Let’s start by busting one of crypto’s most persistent stereotypes: that it’s just for young, wealthy finance bros chasing dreams of Lamborghini sports cars (aka “Lambos”) and going “to the moon.” Sure, that subculture exists—just like it does in day trading and sports betting. But crypto’s roots are far more diverse.   Earlier this year, we conducted one of the largest-ever studies of crypto holders in America. We found that almost one third (31%) are women, and more are over the age of 55 (15%) than under 25 (11%). Nearly as many crypto users work in construction (12%) as do in technology (14%)—far more than those working in finance (7%)—and many do not belong to higher income brackets, with roughly a quarter (26%) of crypto-owning households earning less than $75,000/year.  The stereotype is outdated and, frankly, dangerous. It discourages thoughtful newcomers from participating and lets bad actors hide behind a smokescreen of memes and cartoonish masculinity. The future of crypto will be shaped by everyday Americans, not caricatures.  Decode the lingo, stay for the mission  Don’t let the lingo intimidate you. You don’t need to speak “crypto” fluently to participate—just like you don’t need to know what “https” means to send an email. But to new users feeling overwhelmed by the language of crypto, here’s a quick translation guide to get started:  HODL: Originally a typo for “hold,” it means holding on to your crypto for dear life and resisting the urge to sell in volatile markets. It’s become a philosophy for long-term belief in a project’s value.  Degen: Short for “degenerate,” it describes high-risk traders chasing fast gains in often unvetted projects. It’s part joke, part warning.  Memecoin: A token built around a joke or cultural moment like Dogecoin or the recent Hawk Tuah coin. Some are created in jest, others are tapping into legitimate community-driven goals. Think of these as digital collectibles, like Pokemon cards.  Tips for crypto newbies   Start small, stay curious: The best way to learn is by doing. Treat your first crypto transaction like your first gym session—you’re here to learn the ropes, not break a record.   Use reputable platforms: Avoid buying coins just because they’re trending on TikTok. Stick to exchanges and wallets with strong reputations, transparent policies, and educational resources.  Do your own research: Known as “DYOR” in the crypto world, do your own research and lean on trusted sources. Unfortunately like any industry, there is risk of scams or fraud with crypto. Rule of thumb: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.   Beyond the buzz  Crypto’s potential isn’t defined by celebrity endorsements or trending memes. It lies in what happens beyond the hype: freedom to exchange value directly, without back-office delays or middlemen taking control. Transparent governance and extra layers of privacy. True ownership and accessibility of your digital identity and assets.   Regardless of what piqued your interest in crypto or when, welcome. You’re right on time. The memes may fade, but crypto’s promise is here to stay.  Stu Alderoty is president of the National Cryptocurrency Association.