By Michelle Conlin
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Buyers of U.S. President Donald Trump’s $TRUMP meme coin spent an estimated $148 million in the contest to win the opportunity to dine with the president at his private golf club outside of Washington, D.C. on May 22, according to crypto intelligence firm Inca Digital.
The event, which the president promoted on social media as the “most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the world,” promised the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP meme coin an invite to a gala dinner with the president, while the top 25 will also enjoy “an ultra-exclusive private VIP reception” with the president as well as a “Special VIP Tour.”
The website posted on Monday: “Congratulations, if you’re in the top 220 on the leaderboard… President Trump will see YOU on May 22 at the Gala Dinner in Washington D.C.”
The contest’s winners were ranked by their “time-weighted” $TRUMP holdings, which were calculated from the time the contest was announced on April 23 to the cutoff on May 12. The top 220 “time-weighted” holdings amounted to $147,586,796.41 million worth of $TRUMP coin once the contest ended, according to crypto intelligence firm Inca Digital.
The coins surged to $75 after Trump announced them over his Inauguration weekend before falling to a low of $7.50. On Monday, as the contest ended, $TRUMP was trading around $14.
Since the coin launched in January, 592,962 wallets have lost a combined $3.9 billion Inca said.
The top holder of $TRUMP meme coins on the leaderboard was a wallet called “SUN” with nearly $18.5 million worth of the coin in time weighted holdings. The wallet is owned by Seychelles-based crypto exchange HTX, according to blockchain analysis firm Arkham.
China-born crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun is a member of HTX’s global advisory board, according to his Linkedin profile. HTX didn’t respond to requests for comment on the wallet. Sun declined to comment.
Other holders in the top 25 included companies based in Singapore and Hong Kong.
After Trump won the presidency, Sun said he invested a total of $75 million into the family’s new cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial. In addition to being the single-largest known investor, Sun also became an advisor to the project.
In February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it paused its 2023 fraud case against Sun, citing public interest.
The SEC declined to comment.
Coming in last place, at number 220 on the leaderboard on was an anonymous wallet simply known as “ces,” which held about $59,000 worth of time-weighted coins. The terms and conditions of the event noted that Trump may not attend and it could be “cancelled for any reason.”
In January, the Trump Organization announced that the president’s investments, assets and business interests would be held in a trust managed by his children and he would play no role in day-to-day operations or decision making. The family named a prominent attorney, William Burck, as an ethics adviser to “avoid any perceived conflicts of interest.”
On April 24, the Trump Organization subsequently fired Burck, citing his representation of Harvard University in its funding battle with the Trump administration. The company has not named a replacement. Burck did not offer comment.
The White House and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment. In an earlier response to Reuters regarding criticisms by Democratic lawmakers that the meme coin dinner poses conflicts of interest, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said: “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest.”
The current market value of all $TRUMP coins is $2.74 billion. A company controlled by the Trump family and a second firm together hold 80% of the remaining supply of the meme coins, which are advertised with an image of the president raising his fist in reference to his July assassination attempt.
So far, the entities behind the Trump coin have earned $320.19 million in fees, including at least $1.35 million after the dinner announcement, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
Some government ethics experts say the $TRUMP meme coin allows anonymous foreign individuals to personally purchase access to Trump, triggering a volley of complaints from Democratic lawmakers to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, ranking member of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has opened an inquiry into whether Trump’s crypto enterprises violate government ethics requirements.
Both Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy and Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley have each introduced bills aimed at ending the ability of presidents and members of Congress to profit off crypto assets. California Democratic Congressman Sam Liccardo introduced companion legislation in the U.S. House.
“The Trump meme coin is the single most corrupt act ever committed by a president,” said Sen. Murphy in a statement to Reuters on Friday. “Donald Trump is essentially posting his Venmo for any billionaire CEO or foreign oligarch to cash in some favors by secretly sending him millions of dollars.”
Of particular concern, the lawmakers say, is the way Trump has moved to curb crypto enforcement and ease regulation at the same time as his family stands to benefit financially from the sector. In April, the DOJ dismantled its crypto enforcement unit.
A spokesperson for the DOJ told Reuters: “This Department of Justice will continue to prosecute those who victimize digital asset investors or those who use digital assets in furtherance of crimes.”
Since the $TRUMP meme coin launch three days before the president’s inauguration, returns have favored large investors. More than 60 large wallets have profited close to $1.5 billion, with $48 million in profits occurring after the April dinner announcement, according to reviews by Inca Digital and crypto analytics tracker Bubblemaps as of May 8.
At least two of the largest investors in the $TRUMP contest have made profits in excess of $10 million each, Inca Digital found, while 15 investors have made more than $1 million.
Meanwhile, about 600,000 other wallets have lost $3.87 billion so far, with $117 million of losses occurring after Trump announced the dinner on social media, Inca and Bubblemaps found. The purchases were of coins that have already been issued, meaning Trump’s family collected relatively small amounts of fees.
One of those is Kali, a 27-year-old in Hawaii who plans luxury vacations for high net worth individuals and asked that her last name not be used due to fear of being harassed by others in the crypto industry. She said she spent about $10,000 on the coin, at an average of $15 per coin.
In the days leading up to the contest, as the coin’s price began to climb again, she was holding her breath and hoping to break even by the time the contest ends today.
The $TRUMP meme coin is part of the Trump family’s growing array of crypto ventures including the trading platform World Liberty Financial, Trump Media & Technology Group’s new crypto ETFs, a crypto mining operation, American Bitcoin, and a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar called USD1.
(Reporting by Michelle Conlin with Tom Wilson in London, Lawrence Delevingne in Boston and Chris Prentice in New York. Editing by Tom Lasseter and Michael Learmonth)
