You may have forgotten about it amid the tidal wave of open-air corruption sweeping through the White House, but the Trump family is still running a cryptocurrency scam. “Trump Coin,” the crypto meme coin released just days before Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term, has already screwed over thousands of investors. Ahead of the midterm elections, $TRUMP, as it is traded on Solana, is courting new investors by offering its biggest buyers an invite to the “Most Exclusive Dinner in the World,” with — you guessed it — the president himself.
The “Trump Coin Club” offers its top investors access to exclusive “experiences” around the world. These include a “VIP experience” at the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix later this month for $TRUMP’s top 23 holders, and tickets to the upcoming Super Bowl for its top 18 holders. You can track who’s in and who’s out through leaderboards for each event. Returning investors and past winners get “boosts” to help up their score. Selling will wipe you out of every competition.
So what does winning an invite to the “Most Exclusive Dinner in the World” get you? Well, on November 22, the coin’s top 185 holders will dine together at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C. “You’ll enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience — an evening you will talk about forever,” the website boasts. Trump is listed as a “featured speaker” — although Trump Coin Club is clear that attendees will NOT be granted a private meet-and-greet with him.
Three other yet-to-be-announced “legends” will also be in attendance. All attendees will receive a Trump watch, a Trump poster, a bottle of Trump fragrance, and a Trump trading card. Are you noticing a pattern yet?
But wait, there’s more! The top 29 holders will be invited to an even more exclusive VIP reception, where they can be near their “favorite President and one of the Legends.” The top four will receive a Trump 18-karat gold watch. All you have to do is fork over some more money to the bottomless maw of corruption and graft surrounding Trump, but hey, you could just burn the cash instead.
This isn’t the first time Trump has used access to himself and his office as an incentive to court investors for the coin. In May of last year, dozens of investors who had dumped millions into $TRUMP described being treated to a barely palatable dinner and little more than a passing glance at the president during a similar dinner. It didn’t help that most of the money they had invested in the coin vanished as its value tanked days after being launched. The first presidential rug-pull, if you will.
All in all, Trump, his family, and their associated business and companies have raked in billions of dollars since his return to the White House. This month, Forbes estimated that Trump’s net worth had increased by roughly $2.7 billion since the 2024 election, with his estimated net worth now hovering around $7 billion. His sons, who are now the figureheads of his business empire, have courted foreign investments — and conflicts of interest — in their various crypto schemes. $TRUMP and World Liberty Financials forays into cryptocurrency are valued at a collective half a billion.
The president seems to be surrounded by a permanent fandom of devotees and clingers willing to spend their life savings and resources in order to gain some sort of access to him. With the midterms just around the corner, who exactly decided to increase their stock of Trump coins is worth keeping an eye on.