President Trump held a dinner with memecoin investors on Thursday night to encourage sales of his $TRUMP cryptocurrency, a controversial event that sparked protests and criticism about profiting off the presidency.
The dinner at the Trump National Golf Club just outside Washington D.C. drew nearly 200 crypto investors, many of them foreign nationals, according to CNN.
“There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” Trump said at the dinner, per The New York Times. “And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”
Investors spent around $148 million on the $Trump memecoin to grab a seat for the black-tie dinner, Reuters reported, and scores of demonstrators protested against Trump holding the dinner.
At least one Democratic lawmaker joined them. “This is like the Mount Everest of corruption,” Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said.
Trump launched his memecoin shortly before the inauguration in January. The cryptocurrency’s price initially surged and quickly fell down to earth, following the trajectory of many memecoins, deriving most of its value from sheer speculation.
The Trump administration has focused on undoing crypto regulations that former President Biden put in place and floated the concept of a national strategic crypto reserve. The price of Bitcoin reached an all-time high this week of nearly $110,000 after a lengthy slump.
Critics argue that the president is using digital assets to profit from the Oval Office. For its part, the White House has argued that there is no conflict of interest arising from the dinner since Trump’s assets are in a blind trust handled by one of his adult sons.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday firmly rejected suggestions that Trump was enriching himself by holding the dinner. “It’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency,” she said. “This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly.”
Bloomberg reported that Trump has doubled his net-worth to $5.7 billion since kicking off his re-election campaign several years ago through a blend of deal making, real estate projects, and hefty sales from his crypto ventures.
The post Memecoin investors arrive for $148 million dinner with Trump, protests appeared first on Quartz.
