These Are the People Spending Millions to Have Dinner with Trump

For weeks, wealthy individuals have been scooping up the Trump family's cryptocurrency in hopes of amassing enough to qualify for one of 220 seats at a dinner with President Donald Trump himself.

President Donald Trump is hosting 220 of his biggest fansto dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., on May 22. The billionaire is inviting the top holders of his namesake cryptocurrency, which is named $TRUMP and launched in December, to join him for the meal, according to his website.

“The competition is fierce. Own $TRUMP—or watch from the sidelines,” Trump wrote in an email to his followers last month. “It all comes down to this. One evening with President Trump at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. for 220 lucky competitors.”

The names of the top 25 Trump token holders—who will also attend an “ultra-exclusive private VIP Reception” ahead of the dinner—are visible on the blockchain. But the identities of these winners are being kept secret.

However, an analysis by Fortune of the top 25 Trump token holders at Monday afternoon prices—using data from the crypto analytics firm Arkham Intelligence and the blockchain analysis platform Nansen—revealed that 18 of them have also interacted with Binance, a foreign crypto exchange that excludes Americans. This suggests that at least 18 of the 25 Trump token winners are likely foreign nationals.

Those analysis also revealed that three of the guests slated to go to the “Gala Dinner,” which critics have slammed as an unprecedented example of corruption, are:

* Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun: With more than $18 million in Trump’s memecoin at Monday afternoon prices, the top spot on the leaderboard is identified simply by the name “SUN.”

But the crypto analytics firms Arkham Intelligence and Nansen both said the wallet is linked to HTX, a crypto exchange for which the billionaire Justin Sun serves as global adviser. Neither Sun, who told Forbes in March that his net worth exceeds $40 billion, nor HTX responded to requests for comment.

The billionaire is a well-known and controversial figure in the crypto industry. Born in China, Sun founded Tron, a blockchain that hosted 58% of all illicit activity in crypto in 2024, according to a report from crypto analytics firm TRM Labs. (Illicit crypto volumes on Tron, however, declined by $6 billion from the year prior.)

Sun has found himself in the midst of numerous crypto debacles. Most recently, he allegedly pushed crypto trade outlet CoinDesk to spike a story on how the crypto billionaire bought and ate a $6.2 million banana. A spokesperson for CoinDesk said the outlet’s reporting is "unbiased and of the highest standard."

* Singapore crypto firm MemeCore: With about $17.5 million in Trump’s memecoin, the second largest holder on the leaderboard is the Southeast Asian crypto startup MemeCore, according to public posts from the firm and Nansen.

Founded in January 2024, the firm is building a blockchain for memecoins, or cryptocurrencies created as jokes without any inherent value, Ting Hsu, MemeCore’s chief business development officer, told Fortune. Trump himself is one of the most “iconic” memes, she said.

Hsu didn’t share exactly how the company is funding its Trump crypto investments, but she did say some of the money came from the company’s “internal treasuries” as well as from one of the startup’s anonymous cofounders, whose identity she declined to share. That anonymous founder will attend the dinner with Trump on May 22, according to Hsu.

The Memecore executive didn’t know who else was planning to attend the dinner and was also curious to see the guest list. “Why [do] you guys want to join this?” she asked.

* Australian investor Kain Warwick: While he’s not one of the top 25 largest Trump memecoin holders, Kain Warwick, an Australian crypto investor, has made the top 220, according to The New York Times. (Warick did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.)

The founder of the crypto company Infinex, Warwick was playing basketball with his kids on a weekend afternoon in January when he saw on social media that the 47th president had apparently launched his own memecoin, according to his X account.

He didn’t know whether the cryptocurrency was legitimately Trump’s and worked feverishly to verify that it was real. He eventually did, invested some money, and went back to playing with his children.

But, as he was taking his kids to the beach, he doubled his bet. “Yesterday was a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” Warwick wrote on January 15, reflecting one day later on Trump’s cryptocurrency launch.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for