At Trump's crypto dinner: Tuxedos, luxury cars and a former NBA star

By David Ingram and Nnamdi Egwuonwu

President Donald Trump held a private event Thursday night for 220 crypto investors who had bought into his meme coin, defying bipartisan concerns from lawmakers that he was selling access to accumulate personal wealth.

Crypto enthusiasts, including former NBA star Lamar Odom, attended the dinner at Trump National Golf Club in northern Virginia, just outside Washington. About 100 demonstrators lined the road to the entrance, trying to shame attendees with chants and signs such as “Trump is a traitor,” “Crypto corruption” and “America is not for sale.”

Odom, a former Los Angeles Laker, walked past the protesters carrying an umbrella, according to a post on his X account in which he promoted his own meme coin. Other people arrived in luxury SUVs with tinted windows, and many wore tuxedos for the event billed as “black-tie optional.”

To secure a seat, the mostly anonymous attendees had to be among the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP coin, with the average participant spending $1.8 million, according to the blockchain analytics firm Nansen.

Two Trump-affiliated companies own 80% of the $TRUMP coin project. While their ability to sell is restricted in the short term, the project’s creators get a fee for every trade. Those fees have added up to more than $324 million since January, according to the research firm Chainalysis. The precise amount going to Trump personally is not known.

“Every time there’s a transaction, he gets a transaction fee? Just unconscionable what he’s doing,” said Ken Papaj, a former Treasury Department official who was among the protesters outside the event.

“He’s using the presidency to make himself and his family richer. It’s just not right for that to be happening in our country,” said Papaj, 73.

Trump arrived at the dinner via helicopter and left the same way without speaking to reporters — and barely speaking to the attendees, according to one of them. A 32-year-old man based in Austin, Texas, who declined to provide his name said Trump spoke for about 15 minutes.

The person said Trump did not reveal a new crypto policy but instead spoke in support of a potential bitcoin reserve and described himself as pro-crypto.

A majority of people at the event, this person said, did not have an opportunity to speak with or take a photo with Trump, who promptly left at the conclusion of his remarks.

“He helicoptered in, he helicoptered out. We didn’t really get to shake hands with him or anything, but it was a really interesting group of crypto people all in the same room,” the person said. “It’s about what I expected. I got the chance to be pretty close to the president when he was giving his speech.”

The dinner was advertised on its website as “intimate” and “the most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the World.”

The menu for the night included a “Trump organic field green salad,” filet mignon, pan-seared halibut and lava cake. A photo posted by one attendee, who goes by @cryptoo_bear, showed attendees receiving a commemorative hat and card.

In another post from @cryptoo_bear, written in Japanese, the user expressed disappointment with Trump’s appearance. “After giving a speech of just under 30 minutes, President Trump danced as he left the room,” the user wrote. “The initial explanation said that we would go around the tables and take commemorative photos at each table, but for some reason that was no longer the case. That’s a bit disappointing.”

Trump celebrated the event on Truth Social.

“The U.S.A. is DOMINATING in Crypto, Bitcoin, etc., and we are going to keep it that way!” he wrote.

After he arrived back at the White House on Thursday night, Trump told reporters the event was “good, very good.”

In Congress, it sparked concerns on both sides of the aisle.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said this month that the exclusive dinner “gives me pause,” and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the concept of the dinner, “in abstract, is hard to understand.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., denounced the project at a news conference earlier Thursday.

“This is the most corrupt White House in the history of the country,” he said alongside other lawmakers. “Just because the corruption’s playing out in public where everybody can see it doesn’t mean that it isn’t rampant, rapacious corruption.”

The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, which often praises Trump on policy, urged him this week to call off the gala or at least disclose those who attended “so Americans know who may be trying to buy access to the President.”

On Thursday, the White House again refused to release a list.

“The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner. It’s not taking place here at the White House,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.

But event organizers did not market it as a personal event. The dinner’s website says: “President Donald J. Trump is Known as the ‘Crypto President!’ At this Intimate Private Dinner, Hear First-Hand President Trump Talk about the Future of Crypto.”

According to multiple photos posted on X by people who said they were inside the event, Trump was due to speak from a podium with the presidential seal.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said this week that Trump was not acting to enrich himself. “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,” she said.

Trump’s all-in dive into cryptocurrency is a sharp reversal from a few years ago, when he bashed the industry. “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” he said in a series of social media posts in 2019.

Like other meme coins, the $TRUMP coin is far from a traditional investment. It is not tied to anything with tangible value, and it is part of a carnival-casino atmosphere that has returned to cryptocurrency since Trump was re-elected in November.

The fine print on the website of the $TRUMP project says the coins “are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol $TRUMP and are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type.”

The secrecy around the invitation list set off a scramble to confirm who paid money to attend the dinner. The event’s website published a leaderboard of who owned the most $TRUMP coin, but with usernames instead of real names.

Using publicly available information from the coin’s blockchain recordkeeping system, Bloomberg News reported strong interest in the coin among non-Americans. According to Bloomberg, 19 of the top 25 holders bought on foreign exchanges that say they exclude U.S. customers, and 56% of the top 220 bought on those exchanges.

The top holder identified himself on X this week as Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur whom the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued in 2023, alleging fraud. The case is still pending, though the SEC has explored a possible settlement or dismissal following Trump’s second inauguration.

As people began arriving for the event, the price of $TRUMP dropped suddenly by about 6%, indicating a significant sales volume, before it stabilized again.

Protesters, meanwhile, used megaphones to amplify their chants while standing in the rain for hours. They included a mix of local Democratic groups, as well as the left-leaning group Public Citizen.

Rose Fabia, 66, a former employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said the event was a blatant example of corruption.

“These wealthy people, they’re just here to pay for access. That’s all it is,” she said. “And he’s taking advantage of it and saying, ‘How much are you gonna give me? How much you gonna pay for my crypto coin?’ It’s a joke. It’s corruption in our faces.”

One person at the dinner, Kendall Davis, sparred with protesters, rejecting their assertion that he is a blind supporter of Trump and implicitly advocating for his policies. Davis, a young Black crypto owner, said the industry has made him a multimillionaire after he previously was homeless. He characterized his attendance as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dine with a sitting president.

“I don’t feel any type of remorse for coming here. My dad is Black. He’s proud of me. My grandma is Black. She’s proud of me. They’re Democrats,” he said. “Nobody in my family has ever ate with the president. Let me say this: If it was Joe Biden or Barack Obama, I would’ve came, too.”

Other people spotted at the dinner included Sandy Carter, the COO of blockchain-based Unstoppable Domains.

Joining the protesters was Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who talked up legislation — the End Crypto Corruption Act — that he introduced this month with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. The measure would prohibit senior executive branch officials, including the president, from financially benefiting from issuing, endorsing or sponsoring crypto assets.

“The spirit of the Constitution was that no one elected would be selling influence to anyone because it’s to be government by and for the people, your constituents, not government by and for people who hand money across the table to you,” Merkley said.