US President to have dinner with 20 holders of Trump memecoin
The Trump memecoin debuted several days before Trump’s inauguration and has lost much of its value since, plunging from peak market value of nearly $15 billion.
President Donald Trump will have dinner with the top 220 holders of the Trump memecoin, the issuers of the cryptocurrency announced on Wednesday.
At the “intimate private dinner” on May 22 at his private club in Washington, Trump will talk about the future of crypto, according to the organizers. People who want to participate have to register, and a leader board of the top Trump coin holders will be kept to determine attendees. The top 25 Trump coin holders will also be invited to a reception before the dinner with the president, and will be given a tour of the White House.
“From April 23 to May 12, your average $TRUMP balance determines your spot,” according to the Website advertising the dinner. “Get $Trump Memes and climb the ranks.”
The planned event did not sit well with Craig Holman, lobbyist for Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group that seeks to limit special-interest influence in Washington.
“It’s buying influence with the president, there’s no ifs ands or buts about it,” said Holman, adding that the memecoin sales run counter to Trump’s statement, made when he first entered politics, that he was so wealthy that he couldn’t be bought. “We’ve never had a president who is so in love with money as this one,” he said.
The Trump memecoin debuted several days before Trump’s inauguration and has lost much of its value since, plunging from a peak market value of nearly $15 billion to $2.63 billion currently, according to tracker CoinMarketCap. The coin’s price rallied nearly 49% in the last day, according to the site.
Last week, crypto traders braced for the start of what are known as unlocks, or releases of a large swathes of the memecoin to its investors and insiders. Some 200 million Trump memecoins became available at launch on Jan. 17, and another 40 million were unlocked last week. CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, and Fight Fight Fight LLC collectively own 80% of the coins that are subject to the unlock schedule, according to the coin’s website.
The Trump family has been expanding its crypto investments, which started with Trump-themed collections of nonfungible tokens and expanded to ventures involving memecoins, mining and decentralized finance. Previously, Trump hosted dinners with buyers of his NFT collections.
Crypto markets have seen a proliferation of memecoins, which are tokens with questionable inherent value that sometimes briefly surge in price if they catch a social media tailwind before plunging as attention turns elsewhere.
