Trump Seeks New 'Investments' in His Crypto Memecoin Fund by Selling Access to Himself Even as Previous 'Investors' Lose Money

Nearly a year ago, Donald Trump held one of the most flagrantly corrupt events of his administration—and that’s saying something. It was a dinner in which the top buyers of his cryptocurrency “memecoin” got exclusive access to him, in exchange for pouring money into a transparent con to make him richer. Now he’s doing it again, but with even less pretense.

Politico reports:

Eleven months ago, a gala dinner for major investors in the cryptocurrency token set off a buying frenzy from MAGA-loving crypto traders, outrage among Democrats and a headline-grabbing protest at the event. But a similar event planned for Saturday at Mar-a-Lago is highlighting a growing disenchantment with Trump’s crypto ventures.

Over the last year, investors have shunned the so-called $TRUMP memecoin, a type of collectible crypto token whose logo depicts Trump raising his fist in the air and the words “Fight Fight Fight.” The memecoin is currently down more than 95 percent from its January 2025 high. …

“Nobody likes it,” said Morten Christensen, a crypto investor who still plans to attend the Mar-a-Lago event and was at the 2025 dinner. “People are losing on the coin, and they are vocal. They are the people on Twitter like, ‘F--- this coin’ or ‘It’s a scam.’ And they’re right, basically.” …

The Mar-a-Lago event is being advertised as “THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CRYPTO & BUSINESS CONFERENCE IN THE WORLD!” It is open to the top 297 $TRUMP investors, who will get the chance to hear from an eclectic lineup of speakers that includes several crypto executives, boxing legend Mike Tyson, motivational coach Tony Robbins and Trump, who will speak during the event’s luncheon, according to promotional materials. He is expected to be in Washington later in the day for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. …

As of April 2025, the Trump family and its partners had made $320 million in memecoin-related trading fees.

Justin Sun, a Trump booster and business partner who got let off the hook by Trump for his own scams, is now complaining that the Trump family’s cryptocurrency trading company is ripping him off. But as Sen. Richard Blumenthal notes, in the article above, Trump has “normalized his corruption. … A lot of people have become inured to it.”

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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