A seat at Donald Trump’s upcoming crypto lunch could cost as little as $70,000. It could also cost more than $6 million, depending on how participants choose to climb the leaderboard that determines entry, although the token is trading nearly 96% below its peak.
The event, announced last week, is set for April 25 at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida. Participation is limited to 297 and is tied to holdings of TRUMP memecoin. Wallets are ranked based on “Trump Points” which reflect token exposure over time. These rankings, rather than simple ownership, determine who qualifies for the invites.
This lunch marks the second of this type of meet-the-president event, following the last dinner announcement in April 2025. The earlier dinner prompted Democratic lawmakers to file protests and raise concerns that Trump was profiting from his own crypto token while championing legislation to support the industry and appointing regulators to oversee cryptographers. These concerns have in part delayed the current legislation sought by the crypto industry, while lawmakers in the United States are currently trying to move the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act forward.
Onchain data shows that participants in this new event approach it in very different ways (previously only the top 220 holders received invitations), and the ranking of these winning wallets is the clearest example.
Over the past week, the address has been tagged as DNTpoX, currently in first place in the rankings, received more than $6 million worth of TRUMP tokens from Binance, including transfers of 1 million and 999,999 tokens within a short period of time, reflecting the majority of its holdings. The pattern points to rapid accumulation, suggesting that the holder has moved up the rankings through recent purchases rather than long-term positioning.
This buying spree over a short period of time is consistent with broader trading patterns around the token. The leaderboard rewards both strategies: wallets that accumulated early and held through the token’s decline have built up points over months, while deep-pocketed latecomers can still climb the leaderboard quickly by deploying capital on a large scale.
The top 29 holders in the rankings will attend a private VIP reception with Trump and get a tour of the event venue, while the others will only attend the gala itself.
However, not all entries in the ranking correspond to individual investors.
One of the wallets that made it into the rankings is labeled “Sun,” suggesting it may be the wallet of crypto investor Justin Sun. While Sun bought $21 million of the memecoin last year, onchain analysis shows that the wallet is flooded with wallet transfers from HTX – an exchange with close ties to Sun. However, the data appears to be internal wallet commingling rather than a single entity owning it. Justin Sun did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
Further down the ranking, the cost of qualifying appears significantly lower.
Based on wallet balances near the bottom end of the top 300 and current prices, some positions are worth tens of thousands of dollars. That puts the likely entry threshold somewhere around $70,000, though the exact cutoff will depend on how rankings shift.
That range is well below the multimillion-dollar positions at the top, but still represents a meaningful financial commitment.
What the leaderboard shows is that the positions reflect a mix of approaches from investors who want to be invited.
Some participants accumulated tokens months ago and have been holding them. Others appear to be building positions recently. In a few cases, wallets may represent exchange-related balances rather than individuals.
Overall, the data suggests that qualifying for the event depends not only on how much is held, but also on when positions were established and how aggressively they are increased.
The TRUMP memecoin team did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
A familiar but different approach
While invitations to the previous gala were limited to the top 220 token holders, it seems things are a little different this time around.
Last year’s crypto-linked dinner selected attendees based on token activity, drawing a mix of traders, entrepreneurs and public figures. Reporting by NBC News, CNBC and The Intercept identified participants, including former NBA player Lamar Odom, while many others remained pseudonymous.
Some attendees said they hoped to influence Trump’s views on cryptopolitics, while critics argued the event blurred the line between financial activity and political access.
Data from the Dune and Token Terminal shows that TRUMP generated huge trading volume in the days following its launch in January 2025, after which activity declined sharply. This history shapes the current leaderboard: wallets that accumulated tokens early in the period of high liquidity have built up Trump Points over months of holdings. Newer entrants compete in a thinner market, but large trades can still move positions quickly – meaning both strategies remain viable.
Where it differs this time is who gets the invitations.
For the new event, data from Solscan shows that the largest TRUMP wallets, including those linked to the project team, exchanges and liquidity pools, control the majority of the supply, but do not appear in the ranking – probably because individual invitations cannot be issued to companies or organizations.
Instead, the addresses associated with top-ranked participants tend to have much lower total holdings. The wallet, which is placed third on the ranking list, contains e.g. tokens worth around $4 million and is around 30th overall in terms of total token holders. Another high-profile participant has between $4 million and $10 million and falls within a similar range.
The group competing for access appears to be separate from the largest holders on the chain, and for some participants these positions were built months ago.
Several top-ranked wallets show large inflows of TRUMP tokens dating back eight to 10 months, typically transferred from exchanges such as Binance, OKX and Gate.io. In many cases, these tokens appear to have been held since.
This suggests that the leaderboard reflects not only current balances and trading activity, but also duration, giving an advantage to participants who have accumulated previous and maintained exposure.
However, recent activity shows that the positions are not fixed and late buyers can still participate in the rankings.
The top-ranked wallet’s inflow indicates that large purchases can still move positions quickly. Participants do not necessarily need to have held tokens from the start, provided they are willing to deploy capital on a large scale.
The result is a system where both early accumulation and late entry remain viable strategies.
TRUMP is currently trading at $3.70, having gained more than 25% since the gala was announced. It remains significantly lower since it was introduced last year.
