On May 22, 2025, outside Trump's National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, protesters held "Crypto Corruption" signs, while inside the club, 220 whales holding millions of dollars worth of Trump tokens (TRUMP) were waiting to have dinner with the former president. At the same time, the TRUMP token price staged an absurd roller coaster: At 5 PM Beijing time on the 22nd, the price violently surged from $14 to $16, but by 4 AM on the 23rd, before the dinner even began, it had fallen back to $14. Behind this farce, an ultimate game about "market signals" and "real events" was unfolding - does reality change the market, or does the market fabricate reality?
I. Trump Dinner: A Perfect Experiment of "Expectation Overdraft"
1. "FOMO Carnival" on the Eve of the Dinner
According to on-chain data, within 48 hours after the dinner announcement, TRUMP token trading volume surged 300%, with 220 whales having an average holding cost of $1.78 million, and the token price once soared 50%. Ironically, when the dinner officially started on the evening of the 22nd US time, the price had already fallen - the market had already completed harvesting in the "expectation narrative".
Key Logic Chain
- Signal Spread > Fact Occurrence: Price peak appeared during message dissemination period (Beijing time on the 22nd), not when the event landed (US time on the 22nd evening)
- Liquidity Trap: Despite TRUMP's daily trading volume exceeding $3.8 billion, spot depth is less than $5 million, with market makers controlling the market with just $20 million
2. "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy" of Political Narrative
Trump's team binds token holdings with political resources (such as White House visit rights), essentially securitizing "social capital". This model depends on continuous hot spot stimulation, and prices will collapse once the narrative stalls - just as TRUMP dropped again after Democratic lawmakers proposed banning "crypto corruption" on May 23rd
II. Do You Remember ETF Approval: Information Arbitrage War Behind SEC Website Crash
2024 ETF Frenzy: Delay, Congestion, and Expectation Gap: When the SEC website briefly crashed due to approval news, the market had already completed pricing 24 hours in advance through "internal leaks", with institutions selling on good news
Market Rules
- Buy Expectation, Sell Fact: When ETF approval probability rises to 90%, price increase has been 80% discounted
- Asymmetric Information Profits: Bloomberg analysts predict approval progress through regulatory documents, while retail investors are trapped in "FOMO chasing-panic selling" cycle
III. Crypto Market's "Narrative Economics": Who Creates Signals?
1. "Trinity" of Market Makers, Media, and Algorithms
- Market Maker Control: 80% of TRUMP token chips are controlled by Trump's camp, with unlock events precisely creating selling pressure
- Media Amplifier: Quick news from Cointelegraph, Bloomberg, and other institutions often become price manipulation tools, like "SEC delaying ETF approval" causing panic
- Algorithmic Resonance: Social platforms amplify FOMO emotions through recommendation algorithms, forming "trend self-reinforcement"
2. Shift from "Fact-Driven" to "Signal-Driven"
When market volatility no longer depends on entity progress but on "pricing possibilities", signals become facts. For example:
Trump's tweet: A single "America will become the crypto capital" can make SOL rise 70% in a day
Conclusion: Crypto Market's "Truman Show"
In this virtual theater built by expectations, signals, and algorithms, real events are merely footnotes to the narrative. When Trump raises his glass at dinner, the market has already turned to the next hot topic - perhaps an SEC tweet, or an ambiguous policy draft. The only thing investors can be certain of is uncertainty itself.
