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The value of Donald Trump’s memecoin soared more than 50 per cent on Wednesday after the issuers of the cryptocurrency said the US president would have dinner with the top 220 holders next month.
The group would be invited to a private dinner at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington on May 22 to hear Trump talk about “the future of crypto”, the organisers said.
The 25 people who own the most of Trump’s coin will also be invited to a pre-dinner reception, and a VIP tour of the White House the following day.
The move, which came as traders were preparing for a further release of $TRUMP tokens on to the market, helped drive its price as high as $14.70 — its highest level since early March, according to data from Coinbase.
The coin has been controversial since it was launched days before the president’s inauguration.
It soared from about $6 to a peak of $75, sparking accusations from cryptocurrency experts that the incoming president was exploiting his supporters’ enthusiasm for financial gain. Analysis by the Financial Times estimated that Trump’s crypto project made at least $350mn from the launch of the token in January.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request to comment.
About 80 per cent of the tokens are held by CIC Digital, which is affiliated with the Trump Organization, and a CIC co-owned business called Fight Fight Fight LLC, according to the token’s website GetTrumpMemes.com.
A website created for the dinner said guests would be determined by the average balance of Trump coins hold between April 23 and May 12, and that attendees could check their ranking on “the official $TRUMP leaderboard”.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 183 people had connected their wallets to the leaderboard. The top holder, identified only as “CASE”, held about 400,000 Trump tokens, worth about $5.2mn.
CoinMarketCap ranks the Trump token as the 37th-largest cryptocurrency. The value of the coins in circulation was about $2.6bn as of Wednesday afternoon.
The surging price and rapid fall of the value of the Trump coin has made it one of the crypto market’s biggest “memecoins”, or tokens that represent internet memes, characters or current events.
In February the Securities and Exchange Commission, the main US markets regulator, said they were more akin to collectibles and did not fall under federal securities laws.
Wednesday’s surge came as traders prepared for more of the tokens held by original investors and insiders to be “unlocked” and potentially sold into the market. However, the organisers said the planned unlock would be on pause for 90 days.