By Vicky Ge Huang and Amrith Ramkumar
President Trump feted the biggest holders of his namesake memecoin on Saturday, cheering on a crypto market still fighting through a monthslong slump.
In a wide-ranging address from his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump touched on everything from the Iran war and his crypto friendly policies to the future of artificial intelligence and a recent rally in the shares of Intel, the chip maker in which the U.S. government invested.
"The crypto industry was created in America," Trump said. "Its growth has been led by America, and its future will be made in America and other countries."
The president didn't address the sinking value of his memecoin, $TRUMP, whose biggest holders were invited to the daylong conference.
$TRUMP was trading at $2.59 on Saturday afternoon, down 14% in the past 24 hours and a fraction of its record price above $70, reached during the postinauguration frenzy in January 2025, according to CoinGecko. The token traded around $15 in May 2025, when Trump held a similar event with his top memecoin holders.
Supporters clamored for a spot at the front to hear the president, disregarding repeated requests from the Secret Service to remain seated, according to people inside the room.
"The speech was useless like last time," said Morten Christensen, the founder of airdropalert.com and a $TRUMP investor. "But the event is much better organized, higher quality all around."
The president appeared at what is billed as the "most exclusive crypto and business conference in the world" for the 297 largest $TRUMP holders. It is a brief stop on a packed schedule for him. Later Saturday, he is expected in Washington for the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Last year, Trump delivered remarks at a similar gala.
Saturday's event also featured appearances by a cadre of "superstars," including investor Cathie Wood, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, motivational speaker Tony Robbins and boxer Mike Tyson. The memecoin's 29 biggest holders were invited to a VIP reception with the president.
VIP guests were also set to receive commemorative items such as Trump fragrances, posters, trading cards and watches. The memecoin and event's official website said there would be no private meetings with the president, and no gifts would be accepted.
The mood in the crypto market has dimmed in the past year, with prices falling and a marquee bill to regulate the industry failing to gain traction in Congress. Some lobbyists have said Trump is focusing less on the sector after signing an industry friendly law regulating popular tokens called stablecoins and an executive order last year.
The timing of the Mar-a-Lago gala has drawn criticism from ethics watchdogs, who point to the disconnect between the president's memecoin promotion and a global landscape defined by the Iran conflict and rising energy costs.
Although the memecoin has cratered since its launch, the Trump-affiliated entities behind the coin continue to profit, collecting transaction fees on every trade regardless of the token's performance. The $TRUMP token generated $1.35 billion in trading volume during the eligibility period for the Mar-a-Lago event, according to crypto research and trading firm Nansen.
"The optics of this grift and corruption happening at this time is unfathomable," said Donald K. Sherman, president at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "But the optics are not even as bad as the actual corruption and the risk of the president exposing himself to foreign influence and allowing this group of people to have financial leverage over him while we are at war."
A White House official said the president attended the event in his personal capacity. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said previously that "neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest."
Bitcoin has tumbled about 40% from its early October peak above $126,000, and the broader market for digital assets has lost $1.6 trillion in value since then. Trump's memecoin, launched just days before his inauguration, has been hovering near its record low.
The Mar-a-Lago event took place amid legal friction between crypto billionaire Justin Sun, the biggest public investor in the $TRUMP memecoin, and World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's flagship crypto venture. The crypto tycoon this week filed a lawsuit against World Liberty Financial, accusing it of "criminal extortion" for freezing his WLFI tokens over his refusal to invest more money with the company. The WLFI token has been trading near its all-time low.
Sun was notably absent from Saturday's event.
Memecoins are a type of highly speculative tokens whose value is largely based on the fleeting popularity of internet memes. They often enrich insiders and opportunistic traders who buy early and sell before the inevitable crash. However, these tokens have fallen out of favor in the past year as the broader crypto market retreated and institutional investors focused on major tokens like bitcoin.
"These are totally illiquid tokens right now. It doesn't take a lot to move them up or down," said Adam Morgan McCarthy, a product specialist at Kaiko, a crypto data provider. "If there was even a tiny bit of buying for the $TRUMP memecoin for this conference, then you would expect the price to pick up a lot. That's how little interest there is in this."
Write to Vicky Ge Huang at vicky.huang@wsj.com and Amrith Ramkumar at amrith.ramkumar@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 25, 2026 15:39 ET (19:39 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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