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Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Memecoin Dinner Offers Foreign, Anonymous Donors Access to Trump
President Donald Trump's close ties to the crypto industry and his shunning of presidential norms are both being highlighted Thursday night as he hosts investors in his official 'memecoin' for an exclusive dinner outside Washington, D.C. The dinner—which will take place at the Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia—was announced last month on the memecoin's social media channels and website. According to the rules, the top 220 holders of the memecoin as of May 12 would be invited to the event, subject to their registration on the memecoin's leaderboard and a background check. The top 25 holders would also be awarded a 'Private VIP Reception' with Trump and a separate tour. The website initially described the tour as a 'Special VIP White House Tour,' but has since changed the language to only a 'Special VIP Tour.' It is unclear exactly when and where that tour will take place. Trump launched his official memecoin—a type of novelty cryptocurrency—in January, shortly before his inauguration. The exact ownership of the memecoin, $Trump, is obscured behind several limited liability companies linked to Trump and his family. CIC Digital LLC—an affiliate of the Trump Organization—and Fight Fight Fight LLC collectively own 80 percent of the total memecoin. Both CIC Digital and Celebration Cards LLC, which owns Fight Fight Fight, receive trading fees from the memecoins. Some ethics experts believe that the memecoin, and the exclusive dinner for its top investors, is a serious ethics concern. 'President Trump used the presidency in his first term to raise money for his businesses, but nothing this blatant,' Richard Painter, who served as the chief ethics adviser to President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007, told The Dispatch in an email. 'Trump now seeks to take this to the next level—Teslas are sold at the White House, he issues his own personal memecoin, and he offers private dinners for investors in the coin. This is the use of public office for private gain in violation of federal ethics rules.' Unlike traditional cryptocurrencies, memecoins like $Trump do not have any inherent function or utility beyond their novelty. Cryptocurrency 'coins' like Bitcoin and Ether operate on their own native blockchains, meaning they derive some portion of their value from the underlying utility of their blockchain technology. Ether, for example, powers activity on the Ethereum blockchain, where users can build decentralized applications and create smart contracts—automated agreements that execute actions like transferring funds when certain conditions are met. So while some investors treat it purely as a speculative asset, Ether also derives value from its actual utility in digital ecosystems. However, memecoins are typically built on top of existing blockchains, and therefore offer no unique utility to their owners. Instead, memecoins serve as a digital collectible and are often subject to speculative trading and high price volatility. For example, the price of the $Trump memecoin appreciated by a factor of 20 in the first two days following its release in January, before falling substantially. Its value also rose by around 30 percent in the days following the announcement of the exclusive dinner event. The highest ranked investor on the leaderboard held approximately $18 million worth of the memecoin as of Wednesday, with the lowest qualifier for the dinner holding approximately $60,000 worth. The identities of those attending the exclusive dinner are largely unknown. While they were required to provide their real names when registering on the memecoin's leaderboard—and will have to undergo a security screening and background check for the event—only their cryptocurrency wallet addresses and a three-to-four-character username are publicly available. Some buyers, however, have identified themselves publicly or been identified by reporters. Evidence suggests that the top $Trump holder on the leaderboard—identified with the username 'Sun'—is Justin Sun, a Chinese crypto entrepreneur and an adviser to World Liberty Financial, a separate crypto firm controlled by the Trump family unrelated to the memecoin. Sun has publicly identified himself as the top holder of $Trump and announced this week that he would be attending the dinner. 'As the top holder of $TRUMP, I'm excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry,' he wrote in a post on X. Word Liberty Financial announced Sun as an adviser one day after he purchased $75 million worth of the firm's governance tokens in November 2024. In February 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission asked a court to pause a fraud investigation into him and three of his businesses. Sun did not respond to a request for comment from The Dispatch. The second largest holder—identified with the username 'MeCo'—is MemeCore, a Singapore-based crypto collective made up of about 60 investors. The group announced this week that it had secured a spot at the dinner, with Chief Business Development Officer Cherry Hsu telling the Washington Post that a co-founder of the venture nicknamed 'Ice' would be attending the dinner on the group's behalf. Sheldon Xia, the founder of crypto exchange BitMart, has also claimed to be in the top 25 $Trump holders. 'Just made it into the Top 25 of the Trump Meme Contest—heading to the VIP Reception & Gala Dinner on May 22 at Trump National Golf Club DC, plus a private VIP tour the next day,' he posted on X. Xia did not respond to a request for comment from The Dispatch. Another top-25 attendee is Ogle, a prominent crypto player who has professionalized the recovery of stolen cryptocurrency funds. Ogle declined to comment on his attendance at the dinner. Journalist Molly White identified a number of other attendees in her newsletter Citation Needed, most of whom are likely based outside of the U.S. An analysis by Bloomberg in early May revealed that 19 of the top 25 holders registered to the leaderboard at the time had used cryptocurrency exchanges that do not allow U.S. customers, meaning it is likely that a majority of the registrants are foreign buyers. The same analysis showed that at least 56 percent of the top 220 $Trump holders at the time had used exchanges that do not operate in the U.S. Many prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Binance and Bybit, do not serve U.S. residents in order to avoid complex and costly U.S. federal and state-level regulatory requirements. Trump administration critics have called attention to the likelihood that a substantial number of attendees are foreign investors, suggesting that Trump's memecoin venture could serve as an avenue for foreign interests to attempt to influence White House policymaking and purchase access to administration officials. 'Because the identities of the coin purchasers need not be publicly disclosed, there is no way to tell who is buying the coin, potentially allowing bad actors, including authoritarian governments and companies they control, to enrich the Trump family,' Democratic Reps. Joseph Morelly, Jamie Raskin, and Gerald Connolly (who passed away Wednesday at age 75 after battling cancer), wrote in a May 14 letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Paying for access to prominent politicians is not a particularly new or unique phenomenon—political action committees (PACs) have often charged high ticket-prices for exclusive fundraising events with serving politicians and political candidates. Trump himself has hosted several big-ticket fundraising dinners over the past several months, charging wealthy donors upward of $1.5 million to dine with him at his golf clubs. PACs, however, are prohibited from accepting contributions from foreign nationals—a restriction that does not apply to investors in Trump's memecoin. Similarly, investors in the memecoin are, through trading fees, directly profiting the Trump Organization. 'There's no precedent for it,' Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, told The Dispatch. 'Trump is literally getting paid for people to have access to him. It's pay for play. We've never seen that, ever. There have been questions raised in the past about whether campaign donors have too much access based on their contributions. But here, forget the campaign—it's just going right into his pocket.'
NBC News
21-05-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Trump's crypto dinner cost over $1 million per seat on average
More than 200 wealthy, mostly anonymous crypto buyers are coming to Washington on Thursday to have dinner with President Donald Trump. The price of admission: $55,000 to $37.7 million. That's how much the 220 winners of a contest to meet Trump spent on his volatile cryptocurrency token, $TRUMP, according to an analysis by the blockchain analytics company Nansen. The top $TRUMP coin holders at a specific time — determined by the dinner's organizers — secured a seat. In total, the winners spent $394 million on Trump's official cryptocurrency, Nansen found, though some have sold portions of or all of their holdings since the contest ended. The amount varied significantly by spender, with the top seven winners each spending more than $10 million and the bottom 24 each spending less than $100,000. A third of the winners — 67 of them — spent more than a million dollars, the research shows. The average winner spent $1,788,994.42. Like many meme coins, $TRUMP's value fluctuates wildly, according to CoinMarketCap, which tracks cryptocurrency prices. Nansen tracked how much each of the contest winners spent on their $TRUMP at the time they purchased it. The top 220 contest winners were invited to the black-tie optional dinner at the Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C. While the website for the contest claims that Trump 'is appearing at the dinner as a guest and not soliciting any funds for it,' it also says that 80% of the $TRUMP coin project is owned by two Trump-affiliated companies, CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC. The personal cryptocurrency and associated contest, which ended last Monday, adds to the litany of ways Trump has appeared to use the office of the presidency to profit personally. His business interests are in a trust controlled by his son Donald Trump Jr., and he has intertwined many of his family businesses with his activities as president, including holding events, like the crypto dinner, at his social clubs, and issuing exclusive political statements on his social media app Truth Social. Trump's cryptocurrency also makes money for the Trump-tied groups that created it simply by being traded. For every $TRUMP coin that's traded, a transaction fee is taken. Chainalysis, another cryptocurrency research firm, has estimated that the $TRUMP coin made nearly $900,000 in transaction fees within the first two days of the contest being announced. While most federal employees would be legally barred from using their office for financial gain, the president is largely exempt, Dan Weiner, the director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told NBC News. 'The president is not subject to the broad prohibition on conflicts of interest that affects almost everyone else who works for the federal government,' Weiner said. 'In general this is pretty wild even by the standards of the first Trump administration, when you had a variety of people doing business at the president's hotels. This goes far beyond that, but that doesn't necessarily make it illegal for him,' he said. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement: 'The President is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people, not for 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.' Even the winners at the bottom of the leaderboard spent far more than the legal limit for an American to donate directly to a political candidate, $3,500. The top spender revealed himself Tuesday as Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur who told Forbes in March he had become a citizen of the tiny island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. Sun was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, but that case has been paused under the Trump administration. The identities of most of the other contest winners are largely private, known only by their pseudonymous nicknames and cryptocurrency wallet addresses. However, a majority of the attendees appear to be foreign nationals, according to Molly White, an independent crypto researcher who has written about the contest. White examined each winning wallet's transactions as they crossed through different crypto exchanges, and noted when the holder appeared to use an exchange that does not legally allow U.S. citizens. Of the 220 wallets tied to contest winners, 158 of them, or 72%, appear foreign, White told NBC News. A New York Times investigation reported that the leaderboard included people representing crypto businesses in Singapore and Australia. The prevalence of non-U.S. citizens among the contest winners is notable, as it is generally illegal for people who are not U.S. citizens to donate to American political candidates, Weiner said. 'It's an incredible contrast. We have very strict laws that prohibit foreign nationals from making campaign donations. So the great irony here is that many of the people buying this currency would not be eligible to donate $100 to the president's campaign,' he said. 'We have a variety of laws that are designed to prevent undue foreign influence over our politics, something actually both parties agree is a legitimate thing to try to avoid. And yet you have this happening,' he said.
WIRED
12-05-2025
- Business
- WIRED
A VIP Seat at Donald Trump's Crypto Dinner Cost at Least $2 Million
Photo-Illustration:Ten days from now, 220 crypto investors will sit down to a lavish three-course dinner and enjoy 'stunning views of the Potomac river' with US president Donald Trump at his 600-acre golf club in Washington DC. To earn an invitation, all they had to do was buy a boatload of the president's personal crypto coin. The dinner was announced on April 23 by CIC Digital LLC—a subsidiary of a conglomerate owned by the Trump family—and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which together control 80 percent of the TRUMP coin supply. They pitched it as 'the most exclusive invitation in the world,' giving lucky attendees the opportunity to 'hear first-hand president Trump talk about the future of crypto.' The attendees were selected based on who had spent the most on TRUMP and held their coins the longest between the announcement date and the deadline at 1:30pm ET today. The identities of the investors who vied for a place are concealed behind leaderboard usernames and alphanumeric crypto wallet addresses. To win a seat under the crystal chandeliers of the great ballroom at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington, the 220 qualifying attendees had to hold or purchase at least 4,196 units of the TRUMP coin—worth about $55,000 at the time of writing, WIRED calculated. The 25 largest holders will enjoy an even more intimate experience, including a VIP tour and an 'exclusive reception before dinner with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT [sic],' according to the website. To qualify for the reception, these VIPs held around 325,000 TRUMP coins on average, worth $4.3 million as of 1:30pm ET. The biggest spender, an investor going by the name Sun, topped the leaderboard with around 1.43 million TRUMP coins, worth over $19 million. (The wallet going by Sun sold nearly $1 million worth of TRUMP before the contest ended.) Many have speculated whether the wallet belongs to Chinese born billionaire Justin Sun; according to a New York Times report, the coins belong to an exchange for which Sun is a global advisor. Sun did not respond to a request for comment. Despite the scoring system favoring investors who held TRUMP coins the longest, a number of qualifying VIPs entered the competition at a late stage. In sixth place on the leaderboard, an investor going by the pseudonym Woo bought 1,000,001 coins (now worth over $13 million) on May 6 and sat on them until the end of the competition. At the bottom end of the leaderboard, smaller investors fought over the final remaining dinner places. One investor going by the username hihi almost doubled their TRUMP holdings in a series of purchases in the hours before the deadline, earning themselves a seat at the dinner. Conversely, having comfortably secured their places, around 35 of the 220 gala attendees had already sold off nearly all their TRUMP holdings by Monday morning, presumably to shield themselves from any potential drop in value. Analysts had predicted a slump in price after the spaces at the dinner were confirmed and the immediate incentive to hold the coin evaporated. VIP investors with the usernames Top and ivo sold 200,000 (worth almost $2.7 million) and 427,568 (worth almost $5.7 million) ahead of the deadline, respectively. Trump first announced his crypto coin on January 17, three days before his 2025 inauguration. He pitched it as a memecoin, a type of coin used almost exclusively for financial speculation. Because memecoins do not generate revenue, nor have any underlying business model, their price tends to fluctuate wildly with swings in public sentiment toward the person, meme, or concept they are based upon. In the days after trading began, the 20 percent of TRUMP coins released into circulation surged in value to $14 billion. On paper, Trump's net worth had increased by tens of billions of dollars almost overnight. The value of the coin has since dropped by more than 80 percent from its peak. But when Trump announced the dinner on April 23, it prompted another trading frenzy, causing the price of the memecoin to surge. As market intermediaries, Fight Fight Fight and CIC Digital likely made hundreds of thousands of dollars in trading fees. Since launch, critics have cast the TRUMP memecoin as an unethical 'money-grab'—an abuse of Trump's office for the sake of self-enrichment. They have also expressed concern that the coin could be used to discreetly transfer wealth to the Trump family. By making a large investment and driving up the price of the coin, foreign powers and other politically-motivated actors could try to curry favor with the president, the argument goes. In establishing an explicit quid-pro-quo—a large investment in exchange for access to Trump—the dinner rekindled those fears. 'He is granting audiences to people who buy the memecoin that directly enriches him,' said Democrat senator Jon Ossoff in a town hall meeting on April 25. The identities of the investors who won a seat at the gala dinner are largely unknown. The largest holders include investors going by the usernames Woo, REKT, GAnt, and CASE. The White House and the event organizers did not respond when asked whether the attendee list will be made public. However, other investors have chosen to reveal their identities, seizing upon the competition as a branding opportunity. The second place holder, MeCo or 'MemeCore,' asked users on X to send $TRUMP to their wallet to boost their ranking, promising a full refund at the end of the contest. 'See you guys at Trump's Gala,' added Rudy Rong, chief business development officer at MemeCore, who comes from a billionaire Chinese family. In Congress, Democrat lawmakers are attempting to push through legislation that would prevent elected officials from releasing their own memecoins, to offset the risk that these coins could facilitate bribery or open the door to foreign influences. Though the MEME Act stands little chance of being written into law because of the Republican congressional majority and the strength of Trump's hold over his party, it signals growing discontent over the president's involvements in cryptocurrency. 'It provides a cloak for payments from bad actors to elected officials and their family,' Democrat congressman Sam Liccardo, who introduced the MEME Act, told WIRED. 'The point is that those who are benefiting may include individuals who do not have America's best interests at heart.'
Mint
08-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Trump meme coin: Creators, few wallets gained millions, while 7 lakh small holders lost money, finds report
Most investors, around 7.64 lakh, who bought United States President Donald Trump's meme token $TRUMP have lost their money, latest analysis shows. A small number of 58 wallets made profits exceeding $1 billion collectively, while creators of the memecoin have raked in some $324 million in trading fees. The coin, launched in January just days before Donald Trump took office, initially saw a surge of activity — jumping 300 per cent within hours of launch to $36 apiece, for market capitalisation exceeding $14 billion at one point, according to CoinMarketCap data. At time of writing on May 8, the token is at $11.3 with market cap of $11.3 billion, the data showed. According to an CNBC report citing data from Chainalysis, as many as 764,000 wallets (data showed were mostly small users) that bought the $TRUMP meme coin lost their money. Comparitively, some 58 users made close to $10 million each, taking their collective profits to $1.1 billion, it added. A total of 20 lakh wallets bought $TRUMP, according to Chainalysis data. Notably, around 80 per cent of the US president's namesake coins are owned by Donald Trump-affiliated CIC Digital and Fight, Fight, Fight, details on the official website showed. They had not responded to CNBC's queries till time of writing. The CNBC report cited sources to say that insiders have pledged to hold on to their tokens, but are making 'substantial revenue' despite vesting restrictions. This because the token's code automatically directs a cut of each transaction to these addresses, allowing the team to profit from ongoing activity. Since its launch in January, Chainalysis data showed that over $324 million in trading fees have been routed to wallets tied to $TRUMP coin creators. In what has renewed calls for scrutiny of 'conflict of interest' investigations into Donald Trump's presidency, creators of $TRUMP memecoin recently launched a contest offerring top 220 holders prizes — including the chance to have a private dinner with Donald Trump for top 25 wallets on May 22 at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington DC, and possibly a VIP tour of the White House. The announcement led to a burst of sales for the token, with price jumping 50 per cent, with as many as 54,000 wallets participating, data showed. In January, crypto analyst Justin D'Anethan had told Reuters that the official Trump token 'opens up a Pandora's box of ethical and regulatory questions'. Now, Democrats in the Senate Banking Committee are pushing to include legislation barring Donald Trump from profiting off of his meme coin and other cryptocurrencies, sources told Bloomberg. They have also launched an investigation into ownership of $TRUMP token, and its revenue model. In the time ahead of his inauguration, the Trump Organization said Donald Trump would hand daily management of his real estate, hotel, golf, media and licensing portfolio to his children. More recently, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly in a statement said that Donald Trump's 'assets are in a trust managed by his children, and there are no conflicts of interest'. (With inputs from Bloomberg, Reuters)
Time of India
06-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
From dinner to watches, how US president Donald Trump made $320 million off the meme coin
Meme coins are typically dismissed as internet jokes with no real value, but the Trump family is leveraging one such coin—$TRUMP—into a powerful political and financial tool. Since its launch earlier this year, the Trump-themed cryptocurrency has generated over $320 million in fees , according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. #Pahalgam Terrorist Attack India orders nationwide defence drills as Indo-Pak tensions rise From blackouts to bunkers: Inside India's civil defence mock drills across 244 districts on May 7 A woman spy who helped India defeat Pakistan in 1971 The coin's popularity surged further after Trump promoted a dinner event scheduled for May 22 at his Washington-area golf club. Access is based on how many $TRUMP coins a user holds. Crypto for a Seat at the Table GIF89a����!�,D; 5 5 Next Stay Playback speed 1x Normal Back 0.25x 0.5x 1x Normal 1.5x 2x 5 5 / Skip Ads by by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Play War Thunder now for free War Thunder Play Now Undo According to the contest rules: The top 220 coin holders will be invited to dinner with Trump. The top 25 will also gain access to a pre-dinner reception with the former president. 'Let the President know how many $TRUMP coins YOU own!' the coin's website urges. Live Events Following the announcement, both trading volume and the coin's price spiked , rising from $9 to $14 before settling around $11. How the Trumps Profit Without Selling Coins The $TRUMP coin is traded on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), which use liquidity pools to facilitate trades. When the coin launched, 20% of the total 1 billion coins were released—half for public sale, and half into a liquidity pool. Through this setup, CIC Digital , a Trump Organization affiliate, earns a share of trading fees on every coin exchange. These fees, although tiny per transaction, have added up rapidly. In the week following the dinner announcement, Chainalysis reported over $1.3 million in trading fees alone. As Nicolai Søndergaard of blockchain analytics firm Nansen explained, 'The price doesn't matter—what matters is constant trading volume, because more trades mean more fees.' Trump Downplays Profit Motives Despite the windfall, Trump has brushed off concerns over financial gain. In an interview with Meet the Press , he denied tracking the coin's value and dismissed the notion that he should forgo any crypto profits. 'Should I contribute all of my real estate... if it goes up a little bit because I'm president and doing a good job? I don't think so,' he said. High-Stakes Promotion and Luxury Prizes The Trump coin team is aggressively marketing the May 22 dinner: Last week, they launched a meme contest, promising one additional dinner spot to the creator of Trump's favorite meme. The top four holders will also receive Trump-branded watches valued at $100,000 each. Opaque Access and Ethics Concerns While Trump is also hosting a 'Crypto & AI Innovators' dinner at the same venue—with a $1.5 million per-person price tag via his super PAC—there's no requirement to disclose who buys their way into the meme coin event. That anonymity has drawn criticism. Unlike political donations, crypto holdings and transactions are not subject to public disclosure , raising concerns about undue influence from anonymous or foreign actors. Even though registrants must provide real names and contact info, the $TRUMP leaderboard displays only usernames. Eligibility is based not just on the number of coins held, but also the duration of ownership. For those just outside the top 220, the site leaves a message: "You're so close. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT for your $TRUMP dinner."
