Donald Trump is slated to star at a cryptocurrency bash on 25 April at his Mar-a-Lago club for scores of purchasers of his crypto memecoin $Trump that has enriched him while in office. The move is fueling renewed criticism from top Democrats and ethics watchdogs that he is using the presidency for financial gains in a break with ethical norms.

The Trump-linked Fight Fight Fight LLC has hyped the event as “THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CRYPTO & BUSINESS CONFERENCE IN THE WORLD”. It’s promising a luncheon with Trump as its keynote speaker, according to the memecoin’s official website and its social media account.

To boost sales of $Trump, Fight Fight Fight LLC announced last month that the 25 April event is only open to the top 297 coin purchasers, and that the top 29 investors will be invited to a special reception with Trump.

Memecoins are highly volatile crypto tokens whose value is not tied to a real-world asset, rather to something that has gone viral on social media. Trump launched his memecoin just days before his 2025 inauguration.

Besides Trump, the upcoming bash is slated to feature talks by several crypto entrepreneurs, and draw Trump friends like Mike Tyson, the ex-boxer. The gala is strongly reminiscent of a dinner that Trump hosted at his Virginia golf club last May for 220 purchasers of $Trump. That dinner, which brought in $148m , drew stinging rebukes from many Democrats and watchdog groups who called it a “pay to play” ploy and a conflict of interest for the US president to host a gala not for campaign donations but for his personal financial benefit.

The possible hitch with this month’s event is that the memecoin’s website has a disclaimer that Trump may not be able to attend the all-day event. Still, according to the website, if Trump can’t attend, the event may be rescheduled or those who qualified for the gathering will receive “a limited edition Trump NFT (Non Fungible Token) in lieu thereof”.

Ethics experts and some top Democrats have already voiced strong concerns ahead of this year’s crypto gala.

Richard Painter, who teaches law at the University of Minnesota and was the top ethics adviser to President George W Bush for part of Bush’s second term, told the Guardian that the event “is a dangerous conflict of interest and a ‘use of public office for private gain’ which for any other federal officer or employee would violate the express language of federal ethics rules”.

“This is also payment of money to get access to the president, which meets the original understanding of the meaning of the word ‘bribery’ that was included in the impeachment clause of the constitution, even if modern federal criminal bribery statutes (eg 18 USC 201) are not violated unless the president agrees to a specific official act in exchange for purchase of his $Trump coin,” Painter said.

The Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Adam Schiff of California, have also written to Fight, Fight Fight LLC to raise red flags about Trump profiting from the event.

“We have previously raised concerns with President Trump’s willingness to use the presidency for personal profit – including a similar dinner President Trump promoted for meme coin holders last year,” the lawmakers noted in the letter. “It is essential that Congress fully understand the extent to which President Trump and his family are profiting off of his cryptocurrency ventures.”

The letter stressed that “notably not all $TRUMP holders have benefited from their investment”, and cited a February industry report that $TRUMP – and the first lady’s meme coin, $MELANIA – “erased an estimated $4.3 billion in retail wealth” in recent months, with 2 million holders currently underwater.”. In sharp contrast, the same report found that 45 other crypto wallets that were early holders of $Trump coins had profited by about $1.2bn.

Unlike presidents before him, Trump has declined to put his assets in a completely blind trust or divest from his businesses, despite urging from ethics experts.

After Trump’s earlier memecoin bash prompted conflict of interest questions, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that Trump is “abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws that are applicable to the president”.

Trump himself has dismissed concerns about conflicts of interests, boasting to the New York Times in January that he has a “very honest family” and that he had never taken his presidential salary.

Still, key Democrats, watchdogs and scholars say that Trump’s aggressive promotion of $Trump underscores his transactional style of governing which has benefited his own bank account and been a boon to the crypto industry. Additionally, this crypto event is one of several crypto ventures that Trump or his two eldest sons, Eric and Don Jr, have aggressively pushed during his presidency that reports show have boosted his wealth by at least $3bn, per Forbes, sparking strong concerns about Trump abusing his office for personal gain.

Trump and his two eldest sons started their own crypto business, World Liberty Financial, in the fall of 2024 in the midst of his third presidential run. Last year, World Liberty Financial, which Eric and Don Jr have helped promote, launched a crypto stablecoin which is pegged to the dollar and has proved lucrative.

During his 2024 campaign Trump raised millions of dollars from the crypto industry, while pledging to make the US “the crypto capital of the world”. He has also made good on pledges to ease SEC regulations of cryptocurrency, a key crypto industry goal but a sharp break with Trump’s earlier crypto stances. In 2021, he called crypto a “scam” and a “disaster waiting to happen”.

Since taking office, analysts say the crypto industry has benefited from lax regulation and Trump’s support, while crypto firms and their executives have poured many millions of dollars into Trump’s Super Pac and his ballroom project.

Some scholars see economic dangers stemming from weaker regulatory oversight of the fast growing crypto industry by the Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal agencies.

Eswar Prasad, a Cornell economist, told the Guardian that it was “clear that, under Trump, the government’s regulatory apparatus is keen to look past any and all sins of favored crypto promoters, a group that comprises individuals who have directly benefited the Trump family’s financial interests”.