“This is about as unethical as you can get,” said a spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.Alex Brandon/AP
The cryptocurrency Donald Trump launched days before returning to the Oval Office got a big boost on Wednesday afternoon, as the Trump-owned company behind the meme coin announced that its top holders would be invited to an exclusive dinner with the president—and the 25 leading buyers will get a special VIP tour of the White House.
Launched one business day before Trump’s inauguration in January, the cryptocurrency—which has no inherent value or particular use—immediately saw its value shoot from just $6.29 to $74, before crashing to around $10 by early March. The price has slumped as low as $7.57 and was hovering around $9 on Monday. But a little before noon Eastern Time on Tuesday, the price steadily began rising, hitting a peak of $14.28 a few moments after the coin’s official X account announced a special event for top investors of $TRUMP.
“This is about as unethical as you can get—essentially selling off access to the president.”
According to the coin’s official website, its top 220 holders will be invited to a special May 22 dinner at Trump’s country club outside Washington, DC.
An even more special perk is in store for the 25 biggest holders, who “will be invited for an ultra-exclusive private VIP Reception with the President. And separately by us to a Special White House Tour.” Although littered with grammatical errors, the coin’s website emphasizes at every opportunity that it’s promoting an event with the sitting president of the United States.
“This is one of the most exclusive events in the world,” the website notes in its FAQ. “This is a high-security, high-status event with President Trump. If you earned a seat at the table, it’s because you earned it.”
“You are having Dinner with the President of the USA!” the website enthuses under a section about event security, warning that anyone attending will have to pass a background check and can’t hail from a country that doesn’t participate in Know Your Customer banking regulations.
Meme coins have no intrinsic value or particular usefulness as currency, but serve more as a cultural signifier. They usually are based on an internet joke, such as the internet’s fascination with the “doge” dog (Dogecoin), or make use of a celebrity’s image. While real money can be made riding the speculative highs and lows of meme coin trading, it’s also one of the sectors of the crypto world most prone to bubbles and subsequent collapses.
After Trump announced the coin, many crypto enthusiasts—who have largely been supportive of the president—cringed at his association with one of the blockchain’s more frivolous incarnations. But Trump coin holders did appear to heed the call to enter to win a seat at the event—or on the tour—with a number of users registering multi-million dollar caches of $TRUMP in the hours following.
Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the nonpartisan group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, characterized the move as a naked quid pro quo. “The closest situation I can think of was Bill Clinton hosting major donors in the Lincoln Bedroom,” Libowitz said, “but that pales in comparison to this. This is about as unethical as you can get—essentially selling off access to the president and the White House.”
What it probably wasn’t, he said, was illegal: “There are, unfortunately, no laws that apply to the president that could be violated here, unless one of the top 25 holders was something like a foreign state’s wealth fund.” In that case, Libowitz said, the Constitution’s emoluments clause could come into play—and, separately, “any staffer involved in selling access to the White House may have some issues.”
The coin’s official website notes in its fine print that the tours were set up by FightFightFight LLC—a company whose ownership is unclear, but which controls 80 percent of the coin’s theoretical supply in partnership with CIC Digital, a company owned by the Trump Organization.
The White House did not return a request for comment on the tours and what they might include—or how they might differ from standard White House tours, which are typically arranged through members of Congress.