Donald Trump’s meme coin value surges after gala dinner invites

The value of Donald Trump’s meme coin jumped by more than 50% on Wednesday after its official website said the coin’s top 220 holders would be invited to a private gala dinner with the president on 22 May.

The top 25 holders of the coin will also get “an ultra-exclusive VIP reception with the president”, as well as a “special tour”, the website said.

The coin, called $TRUMP, jumped by more than 50% after the announcement late on Wednesday to trade at about $14.70. It fell back slightly to $12.30 in early trading on Thursday, according to CoinMarketCap.

Despite the sharp rise, the price of the president’s coin is still far below the peak it hit shortly before his inauguration in January, when it soared from about $6 to as high as $75. The launch of coins for Trump and his wife, Melania, have prompted experts to accuse the pair of “shameful” conflicts of interest.

The sudden jump in Trump’s meme coin on Wednesday came as investors had been expecting the start of a process that allows more original investors and insiders to cash out their holdings. This “unlock” usually leads to a price fall, but the coin’s X account said that this would be delayed by 90 days.

Meme coins are digital tokens inspired by trends such as viral online moments and have no inherent utility. They typically fall in value after an initial strong rally. Last year, the “hawk tuah girl” Haliey Welch, made famous online by a viral video, launched a meme coin that was worth as much as $490m in December but it quickly plummeted in value and is now worth just $2.9m.

While Trump was sceptical of cryptocurrency in his first administration, he has since called himself the “crypto president” and promised to support growth in the sector. In March, he hired venture capitalist David Sacks to act as an artificial intelligence and crypto “tsar”, as well as establishing a national stockpile of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Trump and his family have become actively involved in the cryptocurrency sector. The first lady Melania Trump also launched a meme coin in January, and last year the president and his three sons started a crypto platform called World Liberty Financial. Meanwhile, Trump Media and Technology Group, where the president is a majority shareholder, announced plans last month to work with the trading operation Crypto.com to provide investment products linked to crypto.

Earlier this month, the US justice department said it would disband a unit that was dedicated to investigating cryptocurrency-related fraud, as oversight in the digital assets sector begins to loosen.

The deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said the department would no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have “the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets while President Trump’s actual regulators do this work outside the punitive criminal justice framework”.

The deregulation has prompted influential congressional Democrats and watchdogs to warn about the growing risks to investors and the economy posed by multiple deregulatory crypto actions at federal agencies.