Buyers Spent More Than $140 Million to Snap Up $TRUMP Meme Coins for a Chance to Dine with President Trump

On April 23, the digital currency got a boost when it announced that its top 220 holders as of May 12 would be invited to a dinner with the president.

People are buying up meme coins in a bid to get an invitation to an “intimate dinner” with President Trump, according to data analytics firm Inca Digital.

As of May 12, the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP meme coin, which is partly owned by an affiliate of the Trump Organization, will be invited to the dinner, announced the digital currency on April 23.

That helped push up the value of the meme coin by more than 40% from the announcement through May 12, partially reversing an 88% slump in the weeks prior.

The top holders of the $TRUMP meme coin paid anywhere from as little as $53,500 to as much as $16.4 million to snag one of the dinner invites with Mr. Trump, found Inca Digital's analysis of the digital currency's transactions.

The biggest holder of the digital currency at the contest's end was an account named Sun VIP, as of May 12, the analysis found.

It's impossible to know the identity of any of the account owners due to the anonymity of digital wallets, but many of the purchases were made through exchanges that don't accept U.S. customers, such as Bybit and Gate.io, noted Inca's research.

"A ton of these users sent funds to international exchanges," said Austin Ryan, director of marketing for Inca Digital, which analyzes crypto data for risk issues like liquidity and front-running. "The thought is that if they are interacting with those exchanges, they are not in the U.S."

The dinner contest has raised concerns from government watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers about purchases of a Trump-branded asset being linked to access to the president. Also, because the $TRUMP coin is partly owned by an affiliate of the Trump Organization, the president's real estate organization, he and his family stand to benefit financially from purchases of the meme coin, critics add.

The @TRUMP meme coin site hasn't disclosed the identities of the 220 top holders, who under the promotion are in line to dine with Mr. Trump.

"I think it's concerning that the names of the 220 people who will be eating dinner with President Trump are shrouded by their anonymous crypto usernames," said Tony Carrk, the executive director of watchdog group Accountable.US.

The White House and the Trump Organization didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

The dinner will take place on May 22 at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C., according to the $TRUMP meme coin website. The top 25 holders will "will enjoy a Private VIP Reception with President TRUMP" as well as a "Special VIP TOUR," the site adds.

Earlier this year, Eric Trump, one of Mr. Trump's sons, said the $TRUMP coin is "the hottest digital meme on earth."

Decentralization is foundational to cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, the world's most popular crypto, was born in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis as a digital currency meant to be uncontrolled by banks or governments.

$TRUMP meme coins can be traded on a decentralized exchange, which is essentially a place where traders can swap goods without a middleman.

Instead of matching buyers and sellers one by one, decentralized exchanges use something called a liquidity pool to ensure trades can happen easily and instantly. Liquidity pools are essentially an automated pot of funds that pair meme coins like $TRUMP with more popular types of crypto that can be easily traded.

When the $TRUMP meme coin was first launched, its creators initially released 20% of the planned 1 billion total coins. Half of that 20% was put up for public sale while the other half was put into a liquidity pool. CIC Digital, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, and another company called Fight Fight Fight, receive "trading revenue derived from trading activities" of the Trump meme coins, according to its website.

Through the liquidity pool, the creators of Mr. Trump's meme coins make money by charging transactional fees on each trade. Those fees are typically very small — usually a fraction of a percent of the trade amount.