President Donald Trump’s memecoin was once the talk of Washington. No more.
Eleven months ago, a gala dinner for major investors in the cryptocurrency token set off a buying frenzy from MAGA-loving crypto traders, outrage among Democrats and a headline-grabbing protest at the event. But a similar event planned for Saturday at Mar-a-Lago is highlighting a growing disenchantment with Trump’s crypto ventures.
Over the last year, investors have shunned the so-called $TRUMP memecoin, a type of collectible crypto token whose logo depicts Trump raising his fist in the air and the words “Fight Fight Fight.” The memecoin is currently down more than 95 percent from its January 2025 high. Just a handful of lawmakers have publicly bashed the conference. And ethics watchdogs are only now starting to bark about it.
“Nobody likes it,” said Morten Christensen, a crypto investor who still plans to attend the Mar-a-Lago event and was at the 2025 dinner. “People are losing on the coin, and they are vocal. They are the people on Twitter like, ‘Fuck this coin’ or ‘It’s a scam.’ And they’re right, basically.”
Launched just days before his inauguration, Trump’s memecoin is overwhelmingly held by two entities: an affiliate of the Trump Organization and a company run by Bill Zanker, a longtime Trump business partner. Both collect fees on the memecoin’s trading, according to its website.
Memecoins are a highly volatile type of crypto token that generally have no inherent value and trade based on online fervor. The tokens have struggled for much of the last year, amid a broad crypto market sell-off. But Trump’s other recent ventures haven’t fared much better.
Shares in Trump Media & Technology Group, the Truth Social parent company, have crumbled 75 percent since Trump’s inauguration. On Tuesday, the company announced it was replacing Devin Nunes, a former Republican lawmaker, as CEO. Meanwhile, Justin Sun, a once-major backer of World Liberty Financial, the crypto company with ties to the Trump family, sued the company Tuesday.
And while Trump-linked companies have continually attracted scrutiny, the reality is that the “shock value” is less than what it once was more than a year after Trump’s return to power, said Public Citizen co-President Lisa Gilbert, whose advocacy group helped plan last year’s protest. She said the Washington-based advocacy group is not planning a protest outside of the event this weekend, citing in part the challenge of organizing something in Florida versus in Virginia, where last year’s event was held.
"He's normalized his corruption," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, in an interview. The Mar-a-Lago event is “simply another way to generate more money for himself, profiting directly from his office,” he said. “A lot of people have become inured to it.”
Spokespeople for the White House and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the memecoin event’s organizers. The White House has previously dismissed claims that Trump faces conflicts of interest, saying that he only acts in the American public’s best interests.
Investors have been pulling back on speculative assets for months and in crypto, that means memecoins, said David Grider, a partner at the investment firm Finality Capital Partners, who added that the tokens are “very out of favor right now.”
The Mar-a-Lago event is being advertised as “THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CRYPTO & BUSINESS CONFERENCE IN THE WORLD!” It is open to the top 297 $TRUMP investors, who will get the chance to hear from an eclectic lineup of speakers that includes several crypto executives, boxing legend Mike Tyson, motivational coach Tony Robbins and Trump, who will speak during the event’s luncheon, according to promotional materials. He is expected to be in Washington later in the day for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Trump’s memecoin soared to as high as $75 shortly after its debut. And the 2025 dinner only fanned the interest. Nansen, a crypto analytics firm, shared data with POLITICO showing that more than $12.9 billion traded hands in the token through decentralized crypto trading platforms in the immediate run-up to the 2025 dinner. But this year’s contest only drew $1.4 billion in volumes.
As of April 2025, the Trump family and its partners had made $320 million in memecoin-related trading fees.
Ogle, a cybersecurity expert and crypto founder who does not publicly release his name, was a top 25 holder in the memecoin last year. But he’s not attending the Mar-a-Lago event, he said. He sold off his $TRUMP tokens in the last year, and while Trump crypto events can be “quite fun,” he said, “there’s enough other stuff going on in my life right now that I don’t need to make a trip down to West Palm Beach.”
“There’s a novelty factor to the first experience,” he said. “If you have a baby, the first one is surprise and confusion and all the other things that go with it. And then the second one, your body has a little bit less of a freak-out reaction.”
Even once-loud critics on Capitol Hill are staying away. A senior Democratic Senate aide, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, called the event “horrible and awful.” But, the aide said, “people see it for what it is: a con.”
“This has slipped to the bottom of the barrel,” the aide said. And with an ongoing war in the Middle East, budget reconciliation and the rise of the prediction markets, which have attracted new corruption and ethics concerns, the aide added: “It does not feel like this should rise to the top.”
There is still outrage about Saturday’s event, of course. Democrats and ethics watchdogs have long said they are aghast that the president’s business empire is expanding in an industry that he was actively promoting from the Oval Office.
A trio of Senate Democrats that included Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Adam Schiff of California and Blumenthal pressed Zanker in a letter earlier this month for details about the extent that Trump was involved in the planning. Lawmakers are also pushing to include new ethics guardrails in a pending crypto bill in the Senate that, they hope, will rein in Trump’s crypto businesses.
Some investors are excited, too. Vincent Deriu, a consultant from New York who will be in attendance, told POLITICO that the Mar-a-Lago event is “the next progression” in the evolution of the $TRUMP memecoin. He said the token, if combined with Trump’s other businesses, could help create a new Trump “conglomerate” that reaches across the technology, crypto and financial industries.
“The Trump memecoin is being slept on,” Deriu said. “People don’t realize it’s the memecoin, more or less, of the president of the United States.”
Who will be in attendance at the Mar-a-Lago event, beyond those who have divulged their plans, is not clear. Attendees must pass a background check, according to the event’s website. There will also be no private meetings with Trump.
A leaderboard on the event’s website shows a list of the 297 accounts holding $TRUMP who secured a spot, though the No. 1 account is named “Sun.” A spokesperson for Sun, a self-proclaimed ardent Trump supporter who was the top $TRUMP holder at last year's dinner, did not respond to a request for comment on whether the account is his or if he will be in attendance. On Tuesday, Sun sued World Liberty Financial over his frozen holdings of the company’s crypto token, WLFI. World Liberty has rejected the claims.
For Christensen, who lives in Cancun, Saturday is an opportunity to “shake some hands with some important people” with the hope of boosting his own company, AirDropAlert.com. He said he is also making “a weekend” out of the trip with a visit to friends in Miami as well.
But he’s not going into Mar-a-Lago with any expectation that Trump is going to revive his memecoin’s trajectory.
“This is just another thing,” he said. “I don’t expect anything because last time, he didn’t say anything. But I will be ready if he does.”
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