Ten days from now, 220 crypto investors will sit down to a lavish three-course dinner and enjoy “stunning views of the Potomac river” with US president Donald Trump at his 600-acre golf club in Washington, DC. To earn an invitation, all they had to do was buy a boatload of the president’s personal crypto coin.
The dinner was announced on April 23 by CIC Digital LLC—a subsidiary of a conglomerate owned by the Trump family—and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which together control 80 percent of the TRUMP coin supply. They pitched it as “the most exclusive invitation in the world,” giving lucky attendees the opportunity to “hear first-hand president Trump talk about the future of crypto.”
The attendees were selected based on who had spent the most on TRUMP and held their coins the longest between the announcement date and the deadline at 1:30 pm ET today. The identities of the investors who vied for a place are concealed behind leaderboard usernames and alphanumeric crypto wallet addresses.
To win a seat under the crystal chandeliers of the great ballroom at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington, the 220 qualifying attendees had to hold or purchase at least 4,196 units of the TRUMP coin—worth about $55,000 at the time of writing, WIRED calculated.
The 25 largest holders will enjoy an even more intimate experience, including a VIP tour and an “exclusive reception before dinner with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT,” according to the website. To qualify for the reception, these VIPs held around 325,000 TRUMP coins on average, worth $4.3 million as of 1:30 pm ET.
The biggest spender, an investor going by the name Sun, topped the leaderboard with around 1.43 million TRUMP coins, worth over $19 million. (The wallet going by Sun sold nearly $1 million worth of TRUMP before the contest ended.) Many have speculated whether the wallet belongs to Chinese born billionaire Justin Sun; according to a New York Times report, the coins belong to an exchange for which Sun is a global adviser. Sun did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite the scoring system favoring investors who held TRUMP coins the longest, a number of qualifying VIPs entered the competition at a late stage. In sixth place on the leaderboard, an investor going by the pseudonym Woo bought 1,000,001 coins (now worth over $13 million) on May 6 and sat on them until the end of the competition.
At the bottom end of the leaderboard, smaller investors fought over the final remaining dinner places. One investor going by the username hihi almost doubled their TRUMP holdings in a series of purchases in the hours before the deadline, earning themselves a seat at the dinner.
Conversely, having comfortably secured their places, around 35 of the 220 gala attendees had already sold off nearly all their TRUMP holdings by Monday morning, presumably to shield themselves from any potential drop in value. Analysts had predicted a slump in price after the spaces at the dinner were confirmed and the immediate incentive to hold the coin evaporated.
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