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\u201cThis is about as unethical as you can get,\u201d said a spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.<\/span>Alex Brandon\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The cryptocurrency<\/span> Donald Trump launched days before returning to the Oval Office got a big boost on Wednesday afternoon, as the Trump-owned company behind the meme coin announced that its top holders would be invited to an exclusive dinner with the president\u2014and the 25 leading buyers will get a special VIP tour of the White House.<\/p>\n Launched one business day before Trump\u2019s inauguration in January, the cryptocurrency\u2014which has no inherent value or particular use\u2014immediately saw its value shoot from just $6.29 to $74, before crashing to around $10 by early March. The price has slumped as low as $7.57 and was hovering around $9 on Monday. But a little before noon Eastern Time on Tuesday, the price steadily began rising, hitting a peak of $14.28 a few moments after the coin\u2019s official X account announced a special event for top investors of $TRUMP.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is about as unethical as you can get\u2014essentially selling off access to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n According to the coin\u2019s official website<\/a>, its top 220 holders will be invited to a special May 22 dinner at Trump\u2019s country club outside Washington, DC.<\/p>\n An even more special perk is in store for the 25 biggest holders, who \u201cwill be invited for an\u00a0ultra-exclusive private VIP Reception\u00a0with the President. And separately by us to a\u00a0Special White House Tour.\u201d Although littered with grammatical errors, the coin\u2019s website emphasizes at every opportunity that it\u2019s promoting an event with the sitting president of the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one of the most exclusive events in the world,\u201d the website notes in its FAQ. \u201cThis is a high-security, high-status event with President Trump. If you earned a seat at the table, it\u2019s because\u00a0you\u00a0earned it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou are having Dinner with the President of the USA!\u201d the website enthuses under a section about event security, warning that anyone attending will have to pass a background check and can\u2019t hail from a country that doesn\u2019t participate in Know Your Customer banking regulations<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meme coins have no intrinsic value or particular usefulness as currency, but serve more as a cultural signifier. They usually are based on an internet joke, such as the internet\u2019s fascination with the \u201cdoge\u201d dog (Dogecoin<\/a>), or make use of a celebrity\u2019s image. While real money can be made riding the speculative highs and lows of meme coin trading, it\u2019s also one of the sectors of the crypto world most prone to bubbles and subsequent collapses.<\/p>\n After Trump announced the coin, many crypto enthusiasts\u2014who have largely been supportive of the president\u2014cringed at his association with one of the blockchain\u2019s more frivolous incarnations. But Trump coin holders did appear to heed the call to enter to win a seat at the event\u2014or on the tour\u2014with a number of users registering multi-million dollar caches of $TRUMP in the hours following.<\/p>\n Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the nonpartisan group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, characterized the move as a naked quid pro quo. \u201cThe closest situation I can think of was Bill Clinton hosting major donors in the Lincoln Bedroom,\u201d Libowitz said, \u201cbut that pales in comparison to this. This is about as unethical as you can get\u2014essentially selling off access to the president and the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n What it probably wasn\u2019t, he said, was illegal: \u201cThere are, unfortunately, no laws that apply to the president that could be violated here, unless one of the top 25 holders was something like a foreign state\u2019s wealth fund.\u201d In that case, Libowitz said, the Constitution\u2019s emoluments clause could come into play\u2014and, separately, \u201cany staffer involved in selling access to the White House may have some issues.\u201d<\/p>\n The coin\u2019s official website notes in its fine print that the tours were set up by FightFightFight LLC\u2014a company whose ownership is unclear, but which controls 80 percent of the coin\u2019s theoretical supply in partnership with CIC Digital, a company owned by the Trump Organization.<\/p>\n The White House did not return a request for comment on the tours and what they might include\u2014or how they might differ from standard White House tours, which are typically arranged<\/a> through members of Congress. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n