Trump's encryption gala: the average cost exceeds one million dollars, and surprisingly, 70% of the participants are not Americans?

Original Title: Trump’s crypto dinner cost over $1 million per seat on average

Original source: NBC News

Original compilation: BitpushNews

On Thursday local time, over 200 wealthy and mostly anonymous crypto individuals will head to Washington to have dinner with U.S. President Donald Trump. According to data analysis from blockchain analysis firm Nansen, the cost of entry is steep, with these “winners” spending between $55,000 and $37.7 million on Trump’s official cryptocurrency token $TRUMP.

Dinner organizers determine eligibility for a seat by how many $TRUMP tokens they hold at a specific point in time. Nansen found that the “winners” had spent a total of $394 million on Trump’s official cryptocurrency, even though some of them had sold some or all of their positions after the contest ended. Of course, the difference in spending is huge: the top seven spent more than $10 million each, while the bottom 24 spent less than $100,000 each.

Research shows that one third (67 people) of the “winners” spent over 1 million dollars, with an average expenditure of 1,788,994.42 dollars per “winner”.

Similar to many meme coins, the value of the $TRUMP fluctuates wildly, according to CoinMarketCap, which tracks the price of cryptocurrencies, and Nansen tracked how much each “bidder” spent on $TRUMP. The 220 buyers were invited to a dinner at Trump National Golf Club (Washington, D.C.), and while the contest website claimed that Trump “attended the dinner as a guest of honor and did not raise funds for it,” it also noted that 80% ownership of the $TRUMP token project was owned by two Trump-related companies, CIC Digital and Fight Fight LLC.

The personal cryptocurrency and related bidding activity that ended last Monday adds another example of Trump seemingly using his presidential position for personal gain. His business interests are held by a trust fund controlled by his son, Donald Trump Jr., and he intertwines many family businesses with his presidential activities, including hosting events at his social clubs (like this cryptocurrency dinner) and posting exclusive political statements on his social media app, Truth Social.

Trump’s cryptocurrency also generates revenue for its associated companies through trading. Each $TRUMP token transaction incurs a transaction fee. Another cryptocurrency research firm, Chainalysis, estimated that the $TRUMP token generated nearly $900,000 in transaction fees within the first two days after the competition was announced.

Dan Weiner, the director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told NBC News that while most federal employees are legally prohibited from using their positions for financial gain, the president is largely exempt from this rule.

Dan Weiner stated, “The president is not subject to the broad conflict of interest ban that applies to almost all other federal government employees.” He said, “Overall, even by the standards of the first Trump administration, this is quite crazy, when various people were doing business at the president’s hotel. Now this goes far beyond that scope, but it doesn’t necessarily mean he is breaking the law.”

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly stated in a statement: “The president is working hard to secure a better deal for the American people, not for himself. President Trump acts only in the best interest of the American public—that is why, despite facing years of lies and false accusations from the fake news media against him and his businesses, the vast majority still re-elected him to this position.”

Even the lowest-ranked winners spend far more than the legal limit of $3,500 that American citizens can directly donate to political candidates.

This Tuesday, the highest spender was revealed to be crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, who told Forbes in March that he has become a citizen of the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. Justin Sun was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but during the Trump administration, the case was put on hold.

The identities of most other competition winners remain undisclosed, known only by their pseudonyms and cryptocurrency wallet addresses. However, according to independent crypto researcher Molly White’s analysis, most participants appear to be foreign nationals. Molly White tracked the transactions of each winning wallet across different cryptocurrency exchanges and noted that the holders seem to have used exchanges that are legally not permitted for U.S. citizens.

Molly White told NBC News that out of 220 wallets associated with the bid winner, 158 (72%) appear to be foreign wallets. **A New York Times survey reported that the list of winners included representatives of crypto businesses from Singapore and Australia. Dan Weiner noted that the high percentage of non-U.S. citizens among the auction winners is noteworthy, as it is often illegal for non-U.S. citizens to donate to U.S. political candidates.

He said, “This is an incredible contrast. We have very strict laws prohibiting foreign nationals from making campaign contributions. So, the huge irony here is that many of the people buying this currency would not have been eligible to contribute $100 to a presidential campaign. We have a series of laws designed to prevent these things from happening, which both parties actually agree should be avoided. However, this situation is playing out.”

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