US President Donald Trump has hosted top purchasers of the cryptocurrency that bears his name at a gala dinner, an event that protesters and his Democrat opponents branded as "corrupt". $TRUMP was launched shortly before his inauguration in January, initially rocketing in value before falling sharply afterward. "It's fundamentally corrupt - a way to buy access to the President," Democrat senator Chris Murphy wrote on X. Protesters gathered outside the event on Thursday night, which was held at a golf course near Washington DC, some carrying signs reading "stop crypto corruption" and "no kings." The White House has rejected the accusations, and in a video of the dinner posted on social media, Trump is seen saying "I always put the country way ahead of the business." "The Biden administration persecuted crypto innovators and we're bringing them back into the USA where they belong," Trump is also recorded as saying. The event took place as Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, was hitting a fresh record high price of almost $112,000 (£83,000) per coin before falling back slightly. $TRUMP is what is known as a meme coin - a type of cryptocurrency inspired by internet memes or viral online trends. Its price peaked at $75 in January before plummeting to less than $8 in April - it was trading at around $12.50 at the time of writing. "This is something that doesn't have obvious utility. It's not being used for payments. It's not being used as a store of value," said Rob Hadick, General Partner of Dragonfly, a crypto venture fund. The dinner was advertised on the website gettrumpmemes.com as "the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World." The top 220 purchasers of the meme coin, viewable on a leaderboard, received invitations to the "black-tie optional" event. The top investor in the $TRUMP meme coin is billionaire crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun who was charged with fraud and market manipulation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden administration. In February, the Trump administration paused the case. Sun said this week on the social media platform X that he planned to attend the dinner, calling himself Trump's "TOP fan!" Sun then made a series of posts on Thursday night on X, including one that said it was an "honour" to attend the dinner. Earlier in the day, Democrat senators held a press conference to denounce the event and to call for disclosure of who would be attending. Calling the dinner "an orgy of corruption," Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed Trump for "using the presidency of the United States to make himself richer through crypto." Trump's views on cryptocurrency have undergone radical change in recent years. In 2021, he called Bitcoin a "scam." Now, he's not just in charge of regulating cryptocurrencies in the US - he and his family are active industry participants. In addition to the meme coin, the Trump family also holds a majority stake in the crypto exchange World Liberty Financial, which was launched just prior to the election. Trump expressed his desire to be the nation's first "Crypto President" while campaigning for his second term, and was a major beneficiary of campaign contributions from the crypto industry in the 2024 election. According to a report by the group State Democracy Defenders Action, Trump's investments in crypto have helped boost his net worth by as much as $2.9bn. "As a stakeholder in crypto assets, President Trump will likely profit from the very policies he is pursuing," the report states. Three days into his term, Trump issued an executive order to establish a regulatory framework that promotes the growth of digital currencies. A Trump administration official told the BBC that the meme coin has nothing to do with the White House. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly pushed back on concerns about potential conflicts. "The President is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people, not for himself," Kelly said in a statement. But one former financial regulator likened the meme coin to gambling. "It's like selling membership cards for his personal fan club which are then traded," said Timothy Massad, Director of the Digital Asset Policy Project at Harvard. "They have no value. But people speculate on the price and those purchases and that trading enriches him." At a Senate committee hearing this week, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy grilled Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the lack of transparency regarding who would attend Thursday night's dinner. Murphy cited reports that many of the attendees at the invite-only event were expected to be foreigners. "There's clearly a way around the State Department for foreign individuals of significant influence and wealth to be able to directly lobby the president of the United States," he said. "I don't have any concern that the president having dinner with someone is going to contravene the security of the United States," Rubio responded, adding that he was unaware of the dinner. — BBC
