This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Welcome to logout: Donald Trump is once again selling access to the highest bidder(s).
What is happening? On Thursday, the Washington Sun’s Jeff Stein reported that Trump will resume his 2025 “crypto dinner” later this year, hosting some of $TRUMP’s top memecoin investors at his Virginia golf club.
The top 185 $TRUMP holders will receive an invitation to the event, which the website describes as the “MOST EXCLUSIVE DINNER IN THE WORLD.” The top 29 $TRUMP holders will also be eligible for a “special VIP reception.”
What is $TRUMP? As my colleague Adam Clark Estes explained last year, memecoins like $TRUMP are “anything but imaginary.” The coin is a cryptographic token, or “a type of digital asset built on a cryptocurrency’s blockchain, but it is not a full cryptocurrency, like bitcoin.”
In other words, buying it doesn’t get you much – the coin’s value has collapsed since early last year, when Trump took office – but it will give you the opportunity to have dinner with the president.
What is the context? This will be the third major event Trump has hosted for $TRUMP buyers, following a May 2025 dinner at his Virginia club and a “crypto and business conference” earlier this year at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump gave a keynote speech.
But that’s just one of many ways Trump and his family have found to enrich themselves through crypto: There’s also another memecoin, $MELANIA, and his lucrative crypto company, World Liberty Financial, which received a $500 million investment from a member of the United Arab Emirates royal family last year.
Strictly speaking, as Stein points out, Trump himself does not own the company that mints $TRUMP, although he still profits handsomely, to the tune of $636 million last year, from transaction fees and other revenue. And he earned even more from World Liberty Financial, which he and his sons own, along with others: $799 million in 2025 alone, according to financial disclosure forms filed earlier this year.
And with that, it’s time to disconnect…
Don’t miss this story about “junk journaling” from my colleague Rachel Miller, a hobby she describes as “a great way to cope with digital malaise and existential dread.” (Required!) You can read it with a gift link here.
Plus: It’s a big day for the sled dog puppies in Denali National Park, of whom I’m a big fan.
Gn bussni
