As President Donald Trump's highly anticipated dinner for top meme coin holders approaches, questions are being raised about the true identities and motivations of the token's largest holders.
The top 220 $TRUMP holders are invited to a dinner at Trump's Virginia golf club on May 22, and the leaderboard is awash with crypto wallets that are effectively anonymous.Documents from blockchain analytics firm Inca Digital reveal that many of the top holders are heavily tied to international exchanges like Binance, which doesn't service U.S. customers.
An analysis by Bloomberg found that 19 of the top 25 wallets are almost certainly owned by individuals operating outside the U.S.One of the top holders is Justin Sun, the crypto entrepreneur behind the Tron blockchain, who has openly shared that he bought $75 million worth of the Trump family's World Liberty Financial token.
Sun's wallet, currently holding over $18 million worth of $TRUMP, has bought $4.5 million worth of the token since the dinner contest announcement.Multiple reports point to the wallet being tied to Sun, but a representative for Sun didn't respond to CNBC's request for comment or confirm whether Sun is the wallet owner.
Another top holder, MemeCore, a Singapore-based crypto network, landed in second place with an investment of $18 million.
An Australian crypto entrepreneur also made the cut.The leaderboard points to the token's extreme volatility.
While 560,376 wallets have made a combined $5.2 billion in realized gains on the $TRUMP token, an even larger number - 592,962 wallets - have collectively lost $3.9 billion.
The figures underscore the massive wealth transfer within Trump's crypto ecosystem, where early buyers have seen windfalls while the majority have suffered losses.Senator Richard Blumenthal, the ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, warned that the Trump family's growing crypto holdings may serve as a backdoor for foreign and corporate interests seeking access to the president.
Freight Technologies, a Houston-based logistics firm, bought $2 million worth of the $TRUMP tokens to influence U.S.-Mexico trade policy, but finished in 250th place, missing the cut for the dinner.The $TRUMP token, 80% of which is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliated entities, has become the centerpiece of Trump's expanding crypto empire.
The meme coin debuted in January and soared to a $15 billion market cap almost instantly, fueled by President Trump's posts on Truth Social and X.
However, the token lost most of its value within days and has since experienced a series of ups and downs.The White House told CNBC that Trump's assets are held in a trust managed by his children, and there are "no conflicts of interest."