Trump family is parlaying the president's meme coin into two valuable commodities: serious cash and access to the president.

In the crypto world, meme coins are mostly just jokes with no intrinsic value. But the Trump family is parlaying the president's meme coin into two valuable commodities: serious cash and access to the president.

In the whimsical realm of cryptocurrency, meme coins often emerge as fleeting jokes, their intrinsic value a subject of playful debate. However, in a surprising twist, the Trump family is transforming the president's meme coin into two highly sought-after commodities: serious cash and exclusive access to the president himself.

As the coin, known as $TRUMP, continues its journey in the crypto space, it has already generated an astonishing sum of more than $320 million in fees for its creators, according to the renowned blockchain analysis firm, Chainalysis.

On Monday, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to promote a lavish dinner he is set to host on May 22 at his sprawling golf club in the Washington, D.C., area. The dinner is open to almost anyone who manages to buy enough of the meme coins.

According to the contest's rules, the top 220 holders of the meme coin will be personally invited to attend the dinner at Trump National Golf Club, where they can mingle with the president. The top 25 holders will also have the distinct honor of being invited to a reception where they can rub shoulders with Trump and other guests beforehand.

"Let the President know how many $TRUMP coins YOU own!" the meme coin's team urged in a post on the coin's website, promoting the dinner and the contest.

Trading activity in the meme coin surged following the announcement of the dinner, and the price of the coin also experienced a rise. However, the Trumps will not need to sell any of their coins to generate income.

The meme coin can be traded on a decentralized exchange, a platform where traders can easily swap goods, such as cryptocurrencies or other types of tokens, without the need for a middleman.

Instead of matching buyers and sellers one by one, decentralized exchanges utilize something called a liquidity pool to ensure trades can happen quickly and efficiently. These liquidity pools pair a small number of popular crypto tokens, such as ether or stablecoins, with other tokens, such as the Trump meme coin.

When the Trump meme coin was first launched earlier this year, its creators, who include Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization affiliate CIC Digital, initially released 20% of the planned 1 billion total coins.

Of that 20%, half was put up for public sale, and the other half was put into a liquidity pool with ether to enable trading of the meme coin. CIC Digital and another company will receive "trading revenue derived from trading activities" of the Trump meme coins, according to the Trump Organization affiliate's website.

Through the liquidity pool, the creators of Trump's meme coins will earn small fees on each trade, which are charged by the decentralized exchange.

"You don't really care about what happens to the price. You only care that there is continuous volume," explained Nicolai Søndergaard, a research analyst at the blockchain analytics firm Nansen. "Because the more volume there is, that means more trades and therefore more fees for you."

Since cryptocurrency blockchains are transparent and trackable, it's possible to estimate how much in trading fees have been paid. Chainalysis calculates that Trump meme coin creators made more than $1.3 million in trading fees in the week after the dinner was first announced.

The value of the meme coin also jumped, rising from around $9 to about $14 shortly after the announcement, according to prices on the cryptocurrency exchange Gate.io. The meme coin was trading around $11 on Monday afternoon.

Launched just before Trump took office, his meme coin has become one of the most public ways the president is mixing politics and his personal finances. It's also brought scrutiny from those who say Trump is abusing his powers and presidency for personal gain.

The remaining 80% of Trump's meme coins, which are still under a lock-up, have been allocated to CIC Digital and another company. An ethics agreement, negotiated when Trump took office, prohibits him from "day-to-day" decision making at the Trump Organization and limits the financial information about the business that can be shared with him.

During an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" over the weekend, Trump said he didn't follow the price swings of his meme coin and dismissed the idea that he was profiting from the presidency. He also rejected a suggestion that he would forgo any profits made from his crypto endeavors.

"Should I contribute all of my real estate that I've owned for many years if it goes up a little bit because I'm president and doing a good job? I don't think so," Trump said.

The team behind Trump's meme coins has been aggressively trying to promote the chance to eat with the president.

"Good News! President Trump is allowing one more person to attend Dinner with Trump," the meme coin's official account on X said last week, encouraging