President Donald Trump’s close ties to the crypto industry and his shunning of presidential norms are both being highlighted Thursday night

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.

President Donald Trump’s close ties to the crypto industry and his shunning of presidential norms are both being highlighted Thursday night as he is hosting 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, while the lowest qualifier for the dinner held approximately $60,000. 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 memecoin 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. 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,” Sun 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 “