Trump's memecoin advertises new chance for investors to meet president at Mar-a-Lago

A company affiliated with President Donald Trump's eponymous memecoin is advertising plans to host a luncheon next month for the cryptocurrency token's top 297 investors with Trump himself.

There's just one problem: Trump may be busy.

The April 25 gathering at Mar-a-Lago, billed as "THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CRYPTO & BUSINESS CONFERENCE IN THE WORLD," is expected to include a luncheon featuring Trump as keynote speaker, according to the memecoin's official website and its social media account, which began promoting the event Thursday. The top 29 investors would even be invited to a special reception with Trump.

But a White House official granted anonymity to speak freely told POLITICO that the event is not locked in on Trump's schedule. What's more, the gathering is slated to happen the same day that Trump is expected to be in Washington attending the White House Correspondents' Association dinner for the first time.

A request for comment that was sent to an email listed on the memecoin's website was not immediately returned.

Fight Fight Fight LLC, which controls a large chunk of the memecoin along with a Trump-affiliated entity, is organizing the Mar-a-Lago event. The memecoin's website does include a disclaimer that Trump may not be able to attend the "all-day event." In that case, according to the website, the event could be rescheduled or those who qualified to attend will receive "a limited edition Trump NFT in lieu thereof."

The announcement set off a quick but brief run-up in the price of the $TRUMP memecoin, which reached $3.08 before tumbling back down. As of 7 p.m. ET Thursday, the token was trading at around $2.95.

Launched just days before Trump took office, the highly volatile $TRUMP memecoin took much of Capitol Hill and the crypto industry by surprise. The token quickly enamored individual investors, who sent the price soaring to north of $75 shortly after its debut. But the memecoin has since cratered in price and become a frequent subject of backlash from lawmakers and crypto executives.

Democrats have bashed the memecoin, along with other Trump-backed crypto projects, as clear signs of the president cashing in on the White House. Crypto-friendly policymakers and officials in the industry, meanwhile, have fretted over how those concerns could jam up their policy priorities in Washington — even as Trump has ushered in a dramatically friendlier regulatory environment for digital asset firms.

Those frustrations reached their peak last May, when Trump attended a dinner at his Virginia golf course for the memecoin's top holders. Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, called the memecoin dinner at the time "the Mount Everest of American corruption." The event even drew concern from some Republicans like Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who said it was giving her "pause."