The flashy online announcement called it 'the most exclusive invitation in the world', an opportunity to have 'an intimate private dinner' with President Trump at his Golf Club only in Virginia, followed by a tour of the White House.
A chair would be reserved for each of the top 220 investors in $ Trump, a cryptocurrency that Mr Trump launched on the eve of his inauguration.
In an amazing escalation of the Trump family's efforts to take advantage of Crypto, a website that promotes $ Trump, the so-called memecoin of the president, on Wednesday announced that the biggest buyers of the coin would be invited to meet him. The effort was in fact an offer of access to the White House in exchange for an investment in one of Mr. Trump's crypto companies.
“Dine with President Trump and the $ Trump community!” said the invitation. “Let the president know how many $ Trump coins you own!”
For months, Mr. Trump's trips have created in crypto ethical conflicts with little precedent in presidential history. While he brings digital currencies to the public for the public, Mr Trump has also appointed supervisors who scales back crypto enforcement and called for legislation that would stimulate the outlook of industry in the United States.
As the news about the invitation of the dinner on social media spread, the price of the memecoin increased by more than 60 percent, suggesting that investors hurried to gather enough coins to qualify for a Dinersest.
“This is really incredible,” said Corey Frayer, who supervised the crypto policy for the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden administration. “They make the pay-to-play deal explicit.”
A business entity that is related to Mr. Trump has a large tranche of the coins, which means that the president of personal profit when the price rises, at least on paper. Mr. Trump and his business partners also collect costs when the coins are traded, a windfall that was almost $ 100 million in the weeks after the currency debuted in January.
Victoria Haneman, professor of law at the University of Creighton, said that the offer was concerned about the ways in which Mr Trump and his companies “can maneuver to take advantage of the presidency.”
At the beginning of this year, the SEC issued official guidelines stating that Memecoins, a kind of cryptocurrency based on an online joke or famous mascot, will not be subjected by the agency. Crypto -Skeptics criticized the policy as a risky move that could open the door for unbridled fraud by Memecoin promotors.
As president, Mr Trump has a broad immunity of laws that arrange conflicts of interest, a Maas in the past he has pointed out. Representatives of the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comments. Mr. Trump's son Eric, who helps to run the Trump organization, a sponsor of the $ Trump -Munt, refused to comment.
Once a cryptocurrency -skeptician, Mr Trump embraced digital currencies on the campaign track last year, while Crypto companies flocked tens of millions of dollars in the 2024 elections.
In the fall, Mr. Trump and his sons, Donald Jr., Eric and Barron, said they started a company, World Liberty Financial, which offered a digital currency called WLFI. Up to now, according to the company, $ 550 million of those coins have been sold.
Not long after, Mr. Trump's social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, moved to offer crypto-related financial products to amateur investors and announced a partnership with Crypto.com, a digital trading platform.
But Mr. Venture Memecoin. Trump has generated the most attention.
Only three days before the inauguration, Mr Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media site, that he sold the currency. The sale of $ Trump was immediately on, so that the president chooses a crypto billionaire on paper.
Memecoins rise and fall rapidly, and the price of $ Trump quickly cratered. Traders who had collected the currency suffered more than $ 2 billion in cumulative losses.
The announcement of the dinner seemed to be calculated to ignite more interest in the coins.
When $ Trump was for sale in January, a large stock of the coins was assigned to the backers of the project. But rules built into the offer prevented those insiders from selling one of the coins until last week, which increased the fear that they would try to discharge their participations and further fall the price of $ Trump.
Instead, the price gradually climbed in the days before the invitation was released and then increased as the announcement went live.
On the Memecoin website, the $ Trump promotors have set up a leaderboard of the largest investors of the coin – essentially an online game with which buyers can follow their place in the ranking. Dinner invitations would go to the “Top 220 average $ Trump owners” between 23 April and 12 May, the website said. The top 25 buyers would have access to a reception with Mr. Trump and a VIP tour through the White House. (At present, the 25th ranked investor on the graph has around 4,000 coins, worth around $ 54,000.)
“The more $ Trump you hold – and the longer you hold it – the higher your rank will be,” the website said.
Dinner with Mr. Trump will take place on May 22 in the Trump National Golf Club, said the website, and called it the “most exclusive once in the lifelong invitation.”
