#TRUMP晚宴 US President Trump’s meme coin $TRUMP made a high-profile announcement on April 23:
The top 220 token holders by holdings will be invited to attend the "President's Private Dinner" held at the Trump Golf Club in Washington on May 22.
The top 25 people will also enjoy the privilege of a "VIP White House guided tour."
As soon as the news came out, the price of TRUMP went on a crazy roller coaster ride within 24 hours: it soared from $9.35 to $16.17, its market value once exceeded $2.7 billion, and its daily trading volume surged to $3.37 billion. However, behind this seemingly glamorous crypto carnival, there are multiple controversies and market distortions.
Initial rumors said that "you need to hold $300,000 worth of $TRUMP tokens to attend the dinner"
However, TRUMP urgently came out to refute the rumor, saying that you do not need to hold more than $300,000 in $TRUMP tokens to participate. Participation is based on the time-weighted holdings registered and on the Leaderboard, not the block browser ranking. The initial unlocked and daily unlocked tokens will still be locked for an additional 90 days to ensure the fairness of the competition.
The threshold for holding coins dropped sharply to $2,000 (about 144 tokens). This dramatic reversal exposed the arbitrary nature of the rules: the calculation of holdings does not rely on on-chain data, but is based on a "ranking system" designed independently by the project party.
What’s even more outrageous is that there are even magical cases of “being on the list despite having no holdings” on the rankings, and this is not an isolated case.
What’s even more absurd is that Sun Yuchen, the founder of TRON, topped the list with 1.1768 million $TRUMP (worth $15 million), having previously invested $75 million in World Liberty Financial, a project associated with the Trump family. This “closed loop of interests” raises questions: the essence of the dinner may be a “privileged channel” customized for specific interest groups.
Although the spot trading volume is as high as 3.8 billion US dollars, the on-chain data shows that the actual liquidity depth of TRUMP is less than 5 million US dollars, and the top ten addresses control 82. TRUMP once plummeted 86% from 75 US dollars in three months. The news of this dinner is just the prelude to a new round of "pulling the market to lure more people".
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy directly called this move a "backdoor bribery scheme" that allows foreign forces to transfer benefits in disguise by purchasing tokens. The U.S. (Federal Election Act) stipulates that the upper limit of personal political donations is $3,500, but the anonymity and unlimited nature of the $TRUMP token make it a perfect tool to circumvent regulation.
On-chain data also shows that 12% of the initial purchase funds for Melania Coin came from anonymous overseas wallets, but the Department of Justice did not launch an investigation, exposing the fact that cryptocurrency is becoming a new gray area for political rent-seeking.
The loopholes in the rules and price manipulation of TRUMP coins have exacerbated the market's trust crisis in Meme coins. Although the project claims that "the initial unlocked tokens will be locked for an additional 90 days to ensure fairness", 86.9 TRUMPs among the top 1,000 large holders may face the risk of being cut in half, and retail investors will be the last to take over.
From the rumor of a "$300,000 entry ticket" to the absurdity of "rushing to the top of the list with zero holdings", the $TRUMP dinner incident tore open the festering wounds beneath the gorgeous surface of the crypto market: power and capital conspired to reconstruct privileges with code and harvest greed with volatility.
This farce not only exacerbated the market's speculative bubble, but also pushed cryptocurrency into the abyss of political manipulation.
As Accountable.US criticized: "This is a bidding war for the closest distance to power, and the chips are the hard-earned money of retail investors."
History always repeats itself - in the Dutch tulip bubble, people went crazy for bulbs; in Washington in 2025, the leeks rushed for a vain "ticket to the presidential dinner". The only difference is that the one wielding the sickle this time is the "crypto president" in a suit and tie.