Trump's performance art has no creative bottleneck. After going back and forth on tariffs and interest rate pressures, he recalled the meme he posted in January this year.
$TRUMP Whale Exclusive "VIP" Treatment
Early this morning, the TRUMP Meme coin official website suddenly announced inviting the top 220 token holders to a luxury dinner. As soon as the news broke, the price of TRUMP, which had been hovering below $10, surged by over 75% before falling back, with a price of $13.34 at the time of writing.
Behind the massive fluctuation, speculators had already made their move. According to Lookonchain monitoring, a mysterious whale quickly bought 407,000 $TRUMP tokens for $5 million after the dinner announcement, and sold them for $5.73 million just 30 minutes later, netting a profit of $731,800, a precise strike. Another whale had sold 630,000 $TRUMP tokens (about $5.48 million) before the announcement, missing out on a potential $4.5 million profit.
The attraction of this dinner goes beyond "riding the trend". According to the official website, the top 25 token holders not only can attend the dinner but will also be invited to an exclusive pre-dinner reception, having a face-to-face dinner with Trump. Even more incredibly, there will be a special "VIP White House Tour" the next day. This event, organized by Fight Fight Fight LLC, claims to be a "once-in-a-lifetime exclusive experience" with Trump himself attending as a guest, and no fundraising fees will be charged.
The official website has also set up a token holder ranking board, displaying the top $TRUMP investors in real-time. As long as you hold enough $TRUMP between April 23 and May 12 and maintain the holding period, you can make it to the "dinner invitation list". Currently, the 25th-ranked investor holds about 4,000 $TRUMP tokens, worth around $54,000. The website declares: "The more you hold, the longer you hold, the higher your ranking!" This rule precisely captures the mindset of large token holders.
In January, Trump and his wife Melania launched $TRUMP and $MELANIA memes before the inauguration. However, these memes have become a "PTSD" for everyone in the crypto space. $TRUMP dropped from its peak of $75.35 on January 19 to $13.34 now, while $MELANIA fared even worse, falling from its peak of $13.76 to just $0.49.
Although $TRUMP and $MELANIA have been criticized for insider trading and draining market liquidity, the timing of token issuance before the inauguration does not involve unconstitutional actions. After the SEC's stance in February that memes without practical use value do not fall under securities regulation, the Trumps seem unlikely to face legal consequences beyond public pressure.
Dinner: Trump's "Usual Marketing Trick"
Using a private dinner as a gimmick and leveraging Trump's personal brand for marketing is not new. Trump had already perfected this strategy with his first crypto project, the "Trump Digital Trading Cards" Non-Fungible Token. Now, he's using the same trick again, using a VIP dinner and personal brand to hype the $TRUMP meme coin, precisely harvesting fans' and investors' enthusiasm.
In the Trump Trading Cards project, Trump designed an "buy more, earn more" incentive mechanism. Purchasing packages of 4, 15, 75, or even up to 250 NFTs, with rewards increasing progressively. The biggest buyers not only get entry to two VIP dinners but also an "ultimate experience" of having two cocktails with Trump himself. So far, this dinner has been held three times in November 2023, May 2024, and September 2024.
This strategy combining scarcity with celebrity effect quickly ignited market enthusiasm. In 2024, the first batch of about 50,000 NFTs, priced at $99 each, sold out in less than a day. The rules specified that only the first batch of buyers would be eligible for the grand dinner event, precisely exploiting fans' FOMO psychology. According to reports, many people bought $10,000 worth of Trump trading card NFTs just to attend this surreal, humid outdoor reception at the former president's Florida palace.
The official website claims that Trump Trading Cards are "unrelated to any political campaign", and the dinner events are not political in nature. However, Trump's speeches at these events are identical to his campaign speeches, with familiar slogans and topics always resonating with his fans. This "non-political" packaging actually provides him a platform to both make money and solidify supporter loyalty.
Now, Trump has transplanted this "dinner marketing" to the $TRUMP meme coin, supplemented with new tricks like White House VIP tours and ranking competitions, attracting speculators and fans. Whether with NFTs or meme coins, Trump's strategy remains consistent: packaging products with personal "charm", stimulating purchases with scarce experiences, and avoiding risks through "non-direct control" operations. In this marketing game, Trump plays it smoother than anyone else.
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