On April 25, during one of his regular trips down to Mar-a-Lago, President Trump will likely attend a VIP meeting with 29 holders of his $TRUMP memecoin, who have spent the past few weeks pouring millions into a useless crypto bauble that has already netted at least $350 million to the wallets most closely tied to the coin during his first year back in office, according to CREW’s estimate. He is also scheduled to give a keynote address to a larger group of 297 $TRUMP investors gathered at the resort he still owns and profits from as president.

This is the second time in less than a year that Trump has offered special access to individuals who purchase $TRUMP. Memecoins like $TRUMP—which Forbes once described as “crypto’s stupidest bubble”—are tradeable digital assets with no purpose or intrinsic value beyond the meme or celebrity they’re attached to. In this case, the personality is the sitting President of the United States. In most instances, memecoins amount to little more than a digital high five, but to Trump, they are an easy way for dozens of people—including foreign nationals—to pay him tens of millions of dollars just to be in the same room with him.

The Mar-a-Lago “conference” has been billed as “the most exclusive crypto business conference in the world” with “18 of the World’s Most Influential SUPERSTARS”—including boxer Mike Tyson and motivational speaker Tony Robbins—and a keynote address from the president himself. The main qualification for being on the list of 297 invitees is pouring enough money into the $TRUMP memecoin to remain atop the leaderboard of holders. The top 29 holders on the leaderboard will get a VIP meeting with the president and other “superstar” guests. 

Like the first event, Trump will almost certainly host holders of alt-right and racist coins, foreign attendees—including those with potential ties to foreign governments—and people seeking favors. Despite assurances that attendees will be subject to background checks and “no foreign Government Officials” will be allowed, the event will still be an even worse security and ethical disaster than the first memecoin event.

This time around, Trump and his team have disclosed even less information about who is attending. In the lead-up to the first memecoin event, the crypto wallet addresses of everyone listed on the leaderboard were not only displayed, but linked to a blockchain explorer. This is far from sufficient disclosure, but more transparent than this time. On the new leaderboard, the public is only shown either a chosen nickname or the first and last few characters of the owner’s crypto wallet, making it even harder to distinguish who is potentially buying their way into the president’s good graces. 

This year’s event also features even more shameless self-enrichment through integrated promotion of Trump branded products. $TRUMP holders competing for one of the top spots on the leaderboard, which uses a points-based system, could acquire additional points through the purchase of Trump branded watches, fragrances and sneakers.

The event, being held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, is also a national security risk. While the event organizers said that attendees will be subject to background checks, it is not clear who will conduct the checks and how rigorous they will be. In Trump’s first term, the Secret Service said it did not maintain logs of who visited the property, and it was largely Mar-a-Lago’s responsibility to determine who can enter the property. A 2019 GAO report detailing security procedures at the property suggests that an enhanced background check conducted by the Secret Service is only triggered when someone is expected to be present in the resort’s “inner layer,” which it describes as the president’s room. Areas like dining rooms and ballrooms—where the bulk of the memecoin events are likely to take place—are only subject to physical screening and sweeps. Many of these same issues would be present at the Sterling, VA golf course where Trump hosted the first memecoin event, but another part of that event was held at the White House, which would have automatically led to increased scrutiny, at least for the VIPs.  

Meanwhile, in recent months, crypto wallets associated with $TRUMP have engaged in financial maneuvers that make it difficult or impossible to track how much Trump may be profiting from the burst in trading. While CREW and other outlets have been able to track more than $300 million that the wallets tied to the creation of the Trump memecoin brought in during its early months, such tracking has become more difficult in recent months because these wallets began moving tens of millions of dollars worth of $TRUMP and USDC stablecoin to Fireblocks custody wallets. In all, from September of last year to February, it appears that wallets tied to the Trump memecoin have moved more than $247 million in this manner over more than 20 transactions. It’s not clear what the purpose of the transfers were, but one result is that “once funds are sent to custody platforms like Fireblocks or crypto exchanges, token movements can no longer be traced,” according to DL News.

The value of Trump’s coin has tanked since it was first released, losing about 96 percent from its highs in the days after it was created—meaning that attendees this time are getting access for a steal—but Trump doesn’t benefit solely from the value of the coin itself. Like many memecoins, Trump can make an enormous profit just by collecting small fees on each trade. Events like the upcoming memecoin gala often spark new waves of trading as people rush to qualify. The more people buy and sell—whether the price is going up or down—the more money Trump can potentially make. The result is a structure that turns the pursuit of access to the presidency into profit for Trump.  

But Trump isn’t the only one benefiting from the memecoin game. Two days after $TRUMP was coined, First Lady Melania Trump announced her $MELANIA coin, which quickly earned $65 million in sales and trading fees. Insiders tied to two dozen anonymous wallets bought $MELANIA before the first lady made the announcement, racking up a collective $99.6 million. Soon after, the coin designers were sued for allegedly setting up a scheme that would allow them to indirectly purchase large amounts of the coin, resell them and pocket the profits while the coin value plummeted. Melania Trump was not named in the suit. In a similar structure to Trump’s memecoin events, Melania Trump’s coin appears to have used political identity as a form of leverage to generate trading activity and fees. 

President Trump likes to think of himself as a trailblazer, and unlike many of his more outlandish claims, there’s a grain of truth to this one. Trump is a trailblazer the same way a tornado is good at quick home remodels—which is to say, in all the wrong ways. This weekend will provide a prime example of the level of corruption and profiteering that no other president would have even dreamt of engaging in, but Trump is comfortable doing so openly. And this second memecoin event represents only a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars he’s made since reentering the White House, making his first year back in office “the most lucrative year of his life,” according to Forbes. 

Header screenshot from gettrumpmemes.com

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