Why a high-profile memecoin tied to Trump is tanking hard

In early 2025 a new kind of raffle took off: spend enough of the $TRUMP token and you could win a seat at a $1, 000-a-ticket luncheon where President Trump was scheduled to speak. The pitch was simple—“come mingle with Trump, Mike Tyson, Tony Robbins, and Paolo Ardoino. ” What made the stunt shaky from day one was the token’s own spot price, which had already slipped from a hopeful $4. 05 at announcement to $2. 88 by the time winners were locked in. Three big warning signs popped up fast. First came the VIP list: the 29 people who grabbed front-row seats were sitting on far smaller stacks than last year’s group. Median holdings slid from $3. 28 million to $539, 000, an 84 % haircut. Second, trading on decentralized exchanges collapsed by almost 90 %, from $12. 9 billion to $1. 4 billion. Money was leaving the coin faster than new buyers showed up. Third, the biggest winner—Justin Sun—publicly sued the project within weeks, accusing it of fraud. Winners who had locked in their tokens started dumping them immediately; the top wallets shrank from 17 million coins to under 10 million in a single week.

Behind the scenes, only two players own most of the supply: a shell linked to the Trump Organization and a firm tied to Bill Zanker, a long-time Trump business ally. Together they’ve skimmed roughly $320 million in fees during the memecoin’s brief life. That payday explains why the promoters keep running the game even when the crowd is yelling scam. On social feeds the rage is real—“this coin is trash” and worse fill the replies. Yet the Mar-a-Lago lunch still bills itself as a once-in-a-lifetime networking bonanza, even though the contract quietly reserves the right to cancel or to swap in a double for the former president.

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