Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he had no idea that President Trump was holding a special dinner tonight, not until a Senate Democrat brought it up to him.

Why it matters: Wealthy individuals from all over the world, 220 of them, are headed to a dinner with the president — a reward for buying large amounts of the Official Trump meme coin.

What we're watching: Whether we ever learn who these attendees are. We know one person in particular who has a ticket, a name already familiar with the SEC.

Friction point: Democrats this week took steps to spotlight what they claim are corrupt practices by the administration.

• Today at 2:30pm ET, members of the House and Senate will hold an event pushing for legislation to keep lawmakers and the White House out of the cryptocurrency business.
• Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), along with Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.), were listed in the initial announcement as event participants.
• It will be livestreamed on Murphy's YouTube channel.

And by the time you read this, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) will have done a media event by phone with public interest orgs on the self-enrichment schemes of the Trump admin.

Zoom out: House Financial Services Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) just threw another bill on the pile of legislation that would forbid federal electeds from launching or running cryptocurrency projects.

• Her proposal, unveiled today, is titled the Stop Trading, Retention, and Unfair Market Payoffs in Crypto Act of 2025 or the Stop TRUMP Act.

Between the lines: There's a long history of wealthy donors buying political access through campaign contributions.

• But campaigns are their own organizations, with federal regulations meant to prevent donations from lining the pockets of candidates.
• Meme coin purchases, however, generate profits for companies tied directly to the Trump family. As the kids say: That hits different.

By the numbers: By our count, Waters' bill is the fifth piece of legislation targeting this issue.

Last night, the Senate voted on a motion to proceed on the GENIUS Act by 69-31, according to a spokesperson for the majority leader.

How it works: Passing cloture before the motion to proceed, as the Senate did earlier this week, is a way of limiting debate.

What's next: Amendment offerings and voting on the final version of the stablecoin bill.

• On Bloomberg TV, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), the legislation's author, said there were a lot of amendments in the mix, but they hoped to get it through as a fairly clean bill.

The news that inspired our recent "Game of Thrones" coverage on stablecoins was the big new vision from Circle — the issuer of the world's second-largest stablecoin and the dominant player in the U.S. market.

• According to a social media post from the company, that network is up and has run some transactions.

What we're watching: What on Earth is going on with the IPO or the potential acquisition?

💭 Our thought bubble: Tether + Bitfinex seemed to work out real well (there have been issues, of course), so Circle + Coinbase seems extremely not crazy.

• But CEO Jeremy Allaire didn't call me on this one you know so anything could happen.

MARA, the bitcoin mining giant, is posting some of its bitcoin holdings to investment adviser Two Prime as a way to earn yield.

• Why it matters: Bitcoin treasuries on the balance sheet of public companies is becoming a whole thing, led by Michael Saylor's Strategy.

What they're saying: "This expanded partnership is about more than just yield – it's about building a model for capital efficiency, transparency, and risk-aware innovation in digital asset management," Alexander Blume, CEO of Two Prime, said in a statement.

• MARA, which is putting 500 BTC (roughly $55 million) with Two Prime to earn yield, has already worked with the firm to post BTC for collateral-backed loans.

Zoom out: This year, there's been a trend for publicly traded companies to buy bitcoin and then issue equity to buy more bitcoin.

• It's a recursive HODL strategy that's expanding beyond bitcoin to other digital assets, and it's something that works great as long as prices keep appreciating.
• This strategy sounds like it could be directionally similar, but without the compounding risk.

🌚 The CEO of SafeMoon, a widely decried token scheme from 2021 — the last boom — was convicted of fraud on all counts. (Decrypt)

😬 Official Trump is now trading on a small exchange that's under a two-year ban in the U.S. (Forbes)

🪙 Kraken plans to allow non-U. S. customers to trade tokenized stocks of popular names like Apple, Tesla and Nvidia. (WSJ)

🚨 Federal prosecutors from the NY Southern District say they busted another crypto fraudster offering a fake investment scheme. (Justice)

🍕 BONUS: We covered Bitcoin Pizza Day in these pages two years ago, and it corrects all the bad takes that come this time every year.

• For another interesting take, read about the technical contributions to Bitcoin, made by the man who bought all those pizzas.

The House of Representatives in Texas passed SB 21 yesterday, which would create a strategic bitcoin reserve for the state, mirroring the one created by President Trump's executive order.

Why it matters: A third state could have a place to put bitcoin, following New Hampshire and Arizona.

Yes, but: The House made an amendment to the bill, so it has to go to conference before it passes.

• Lee Bratcher, of the Texas Blockchain Council, tells us that he expects it to move through conference easily.

What we're watching: June 1 is the last day Texas could pass a concurrent resolution, however, according to Axios' reading of the legislative calendar, so there is not a ton of time.

What they're saying: "Already the home of crypto mining, this legislative session Texas should become the crypto capital. Governor Abbott looks forward to reviewing this proposal," Andrew Mahaleris, the governor's press secretary, told Axios in a statement.

The big picture: Texas has more reason than most to endorse the original cryptocurrency.

• Texas is by far the largest state for bitcoin mining. Using Foundry Mining pool as a proxy, its portion of U.S. Bitcoin mining is almost 3X that of any other state.