The crypto president: Inside Donald Trump's meme coin dinner
Corruption isn't always easy to spot, but with Donald Trump, his critics claim it is hiding in plain sight.
His crypto coin called $TRUMP has raised his family hundreds of millions of dollars. Investors pay into the scheme with real currency and in return are given the tokens, which are not underwritten by any asset.
In essence, they are worthless, like many of the other so-called "meme coins," which mimic more established cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin.
However, in Trump's case, the meme coins have given the purchaser one fundamental benefit. For those who invested huge sums of money, last night, there was the reward of a gala dinner to meet the President.
As large SUVs pulled up to Trump's Virginia golf course, they were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting 'shame, shame, shame".
Many attendees laughed at the protesters, as they continued to chant "America is not for sale"!
This was the kind of event that only the Trump era could produce.
The President's controversial dinner on Thursday night saw the auctioning off of $TRUMP with the highest-paying customer.
The top 220 buyers would dine with Trump at his golf club, while the top 25 would attend a more intimate gathering with the president before dinner and go on a tour of the White House.
'The past administration made your lives miserable,' Trump told the dinner guests. 'They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace, frankly,' he said.
The arrival of hundreds of guests, many from overseas, turned it into a striking spectacle - a symbol to the world that America is serious about the cryptocurrency industry.
'There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,' President Trump said. 'And we're honoured to be working on helping everybody here.'
This new form of largesse is perhaps an attempt to circumvent laws which ban the President from receiving foreign gifts without Congressional consent.
Some Democrats have criticised the scheme as "pay-to-play," giving access to the President to whoever bought the largest number of his crypto-coins. The White House has vehemently denied that this is corrupt, deriding such accusations as 'absurd'.
In total, investors spent an estimated $148 million US on the $TRUMP meme coin to secure their seats at the dinner, with the top-25 holders spending more than $111 million, according to crypto intelligence firm Inca Digital.
As protesters chanted on, Senator Jeff Merkley joined the group, shouting out against the corruption.
"The President is inviting people to buy his crypto coin, put money in his pocket, and give them access to the US government and influence on our policies," he told ITV News.
"We've never seen this level of corruption vefore. The government should never be up for sale, and we want to put an end to it."
Among those spotted arriving at the event were Lamar Odom known for playing in the NBA and appearing in "Keeping Up With the Kardashians", cryptocurrency mogul Justin Sun, and Kendall Davis, an Austin-based cryptocurrency investor, who told ITV News that he "came here to advocate for things to be done right in the crypto space."
Davis sparred with protesters outside, disputing their claim that he blindly supports Trump or endorses his policies.
Davis, a young Black cryptocurrency investor who once experienced homelessness, credited the industry with making him a multimillionaire. He described the event as a rare, once-in-a-lifetime chance to share a meal with a sitting president.
Sun won first place in the dinner contest with his $18.5 million US wallet and is also an adviser to World Liberty Financial.
He saw a 2023 fraud case brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission dropped by the agency in February.
Trump's embrace of cryptocurrency is a sharp reversal from a few years ago, when he would often take to social media to revile the industry.
'I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,' he said in a series of social media posts in 2019 while in office.
The contest was set up by a company called Fight, Fight, Fight, which was created in January and is named after Trump's response to the assassination attempt against him in July.
The Trump family itself, through a corporate entity called CIC Digital, takes a cut of the profits, and it also owns the golf club where the dinner was held.
The website associated with the coin has a disclaimer saying 'Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol '$TRUMP' and the associated artwork, and are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type.'
But there are plenty who think this is naked corruption, like former Securities and Exchange Commission crypto advisor Corey Frayer.
"All meme coins are effectively a scam," he told me. "The idea behind a meme coin is that you hope it will become popular. Lots of people buy it, and you try to sell it off to those who are late to the game so you can profit."
Trump's second presidency has been plagued with allegations of corruption – he is estimated to have made billions in personal profit since taking office.
Much of his crypto company, World Liberty Financial, is the Trump family's crypto platform. His acceptance of a new passenger jet from the Qataris has only further fuelled allegations of grifting.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said this week that Trump was not acting to enrich himself: 'President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media."
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