Author: Weilin, PANews
The meme coin launched by the knowledgeable King Trump seems to understand the marketing "tricks" of the crypto industry. On April 23, the meme coin project $TRUMP, launched by U.S. President Trump, officially announced an "exclusive benefit": a chance for the first 220 token holders to have "dinner with Trump." According to the official website, this grand gathering is scheduled to take place on May 22 this year at Trump's golf club in Washington, with a promotional slogan that is highly infectious, calling the event "the most exclusive invitation in the world."
With the announcement, the price of TRUMP coin quickly surged in the short term, but behind this upward trend, $TRUMP had just experienced an unlocking, hiding a familiar "script" — unlocking, pump, and dump, accompanied by the narrative of a "presidential dinner." Is this dinner a sincere return to crypto holders, or a marketing scheme planned to pump the price?
Recent unlocking of $TRUMP brings selling pressure, Trump's team uses crypto tactics to "pump and dump"?
Whether it was the previously launched "Trump Portrait" NFT series, Bitcoin-themed custom sneakers, or the crypto project WLFI involving family members, Trump's team seems quite familiar with the psychology of crypto users. The $TRUMP meme coin continues this strategy and throws out the "dinner invitation" at a critical moment.
The promotional page for Trump's dinner states: it is "the most exclusive invitation in the world. Limited to the first 220 $TRUMP meme coin holders. President Donald J. Trump is hailed as the 'crypto president'! At this private dinner, there will be an opportunity to hear President Trump share his views on the future of cryptocurrency." What further ignited market enthusiasm was the additional benefit for the top 25 holders: an exclusive reception and VIP itinerary.
To qualify for participation, users must register and accept the Leaderboard ranking based on "time-weighted holdings."
Rumors of the dinner first appeared on April 20, coinciding with a 4% unlocking period for the TRUMP token, which raised concerns among investors about increased selling pressure. However, propelled by the news, market sentiment quickly reversed, and the token stopped falling and began to rise.
On April 23, after the dinner news was officially announced, the price of the TRUMP token rose significantly, increasing from $9.35 to $16.7 by noon on April 24. By noon on April 25, its price fell back to around $12.06, achieving a 60.46% increase within seven days.
Previously, the first unlocking of the TRUMP token took effect on April 18, releasing 40 million tokens worth approximately $309 million, while the decline from the token's peak reached 90%.
The operation of "good news coinciding with the unlocking period" is quite common in the crypto space. PANews recently sorted through on-chain data and found that the turnover of TRUMP's large holders has been very frequent over the past three months. Compared to data from January 20, among the top 1,000 token holders, 86.9% chose to liquidate their tokens, totaling 48 million tokens, accounting for 24% of the total circulating supply. On April 18, the TRUMP token experienced a 4% unlocking. However, on April 20, news broke that Trump planned to host a dinner for TRUMP token holders. Subsequently, TRUMP stopped falling and began to rebound. The dinner event conveniently became a "new story."
What followed was even more frequent on-chain activity, reflecting the FOMO sentiment among holders. On April 24, according to Lookonchain monitoring, about two hours prior, a long-term $TRUMP liquidity provider withdrew liquidity from two wallets, retrieving a total of 211,977 $TRUMP and 18,376 $SOL, approximately worth $2.76 million. At that time, both wallets ranked among the top 220 $TRUMP holding addresses, likely to receive an invitation to Trump's dinner. The address initially purchased 332,000 $TRUMP at $2.41 on the first day of its launch, at one point having a market value exceeding $24 million.
On the same day, according to Arkham monitoring, a certain HTX cold wallet had completed registration for Trump's dinner event, holding $14.6 million worth of TRUMP tokens, making it the wallet with the largest number of TRUMP tokens registered for this dinner. Notably, Sun Yuchen, a member of the HTX Global Advisory Board, is an advisor for Trump's family project WLFI.
On April 25, the official clarified that the participation threshold had caused misunderstandings. The TrumpMeme official X account stated that it is not necessary to hold over $300,000 worth of $TRUMP tokens to participate. Qualification is based on registration and time-weighted holdings on the Leaderboard, not on blockchain explorer rankings. The initial unlocking and daily unlocking tokens will still be locked for an additional 90 days to ensure fairness in the competition.
Dinner details indicate Trump may not attend, previous dinner plans have been "no-shows" multiple times
It is worth noting that this time, the official terms and conditions of the Trump Meme coin $TRUMP indicate that the organizers of the $TRUMP dinner reserve the right to change the time and location. President Trump may be absent, and if the dinner is canceled or he fails to attend, eligible $TRUMP holders will receive a limited edition NFT as a substitute. All attendees must be over 18 years old and pass security checks and background investigations, with related travel and accommodation costs to be borne by themselves.
A post from 2019 on the X platform has also resurfaced with this news, showing that dinners are a common strategy for Trump, but he has been absent from at least 15 similar commitments.
In November 2019, a series of competitions offering breakfast, lunch, or dinner with Trump to campaign donors were condemned as "fraudulent." According to reports from The Guardian and other media, a news organization led by journalist Judd Legum, Popular Information, verified that Trump's campaign team had held at least 15 events since 2018 offering opportunities to have breakfast, lunch, or dinner with the president. The website stated: "Supporters were lured to donate to Trump's campaign with promises of free travel, accommodation, and opportunities to have 'great' meals with Trump across the country." However, Popular Information's investigation "found no evidence that anyone actually won these prizes."
A second post from Popular Information pointed out that the awards for breakfast with Trump in New York, promoted in hundreds of Facebook ads by Trump's campaign team, were fraudulent. The article noted that while a woman named Joanna Kamis was invited to a breakfast event in New York, Trump did not have any meal with her, only taking a photo with her afterward.
Dining with political candidates is a traditional means of raising visibility and fundraising. In 2012, during former President Obama's re-election campaign, there was a promotion for "dinner with Barack."
In response to the reports, Trump's campaign team denied the allegations of operating a scam. Erin Perrine, the chief deputy communications director for Trump's campaign team, stated: "Every competition has winners. Any contrary reports are false." As supposed evidence, Erin Perrine sent a link to an article from The Washington Post in October 2017, showing donor Chris Chavez and his father Tracy Chavez meeting Trump at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona. However, upon verification, Chavez participated in a different competition that did not involve a dinner.
Despite this, Trump has fulfilled promises, but only before he took office as President of the United States. As early as the evening of May 8, 2024, before taking office on January 20, 2025, Trump held an NFT dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Buyers who purchased at least 47 Trump "MugShot Edition" NFTs were invited to attend. At that time, Hong Kong actor Feng Delun, who was enthusiastic about NFTs, also appeared at the event.
Trump's MEME dinner has also become a target for attacks from Democrats. On April 24, in response to "Trump will have dinner with the top 220 holders of TRUMP tokens," Democratic Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut stated: "This not only reflects Trump's nature, but the TRUMP coin scam may be the most blatant corrupt act by a president in history." Clearly, his political opponents are not optimistic about this promotion and event.
It can be seen that the "Trump dinner," with its high-profile celebrity effect, successfully attracted the attention of the crypto market and allowed the TRUMP coin to achieve a short-term price rebound during the unlocking period. However, whether the dinner will be fulfilled, whether the president will attend, and whether participants will genuinely benefit remain unknown. Looking back at the past record of "no-shows" for such dinners, combined with the adjustments to the dinner rules, investors and users may need to more clearly recognize the risks involved.
How long the narrative of the "crypto president" can last remains to be seen.
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