The glitz of President Donald Trump’s exclusive $TRUMP memecoin gala at his Virginia golf club has quickly given way to controversy, as on-chain data reveals most VIP attendees had already offloaded their tokens before the first course was served.

According to Solana blockchain data, just eight of the top 25 wallets that secured VIP status for Thursday’s dinner still held any $TRUMP tokens the day after the event.

Investors dumps their tokens, cementing speculations of a pay-to-play

The majority had quickily dumped or liquidated their tokens after the winners of the gala were released on the May 12, with some even moving funds to market makers such as Wintermute.

On-chain data gathered from Solana block explorer Solscan shows that just eight of the top 25 VIPs maintain a balance of the president's official solana memecoin the day after the dinner.

One of those eight wallets belongs to Justin Su, the Tron network founder who also clinched the top spot on the leaderboard, with $1.43 million Trump tokens in his wallet during the time of the dinner snapshot, which has a value of 18.8 million.

Sun publicly celebrated his attendance, calling it a historic moment.

"As the top holder of TRUMP and proud supporter of President Trump, it was an honor to attend the Trump Gala dinner."

The second registered address on the leaderboard was identified as being associated with layer-1 memecoin blockchain MemeCore, maintaining its entire balance from the snapshot on May 12. Similarly, three other wallets from the top 10 have retained their Trump tokens.

The rest of the five top holders have all transferred their tokens to centralised exchanges like Coinbase and Binance, with one wallet transferring its TRUMP tokens to an account labeled as the Wintermute hot wallet.

While VIPs once held an average of around $4.78 million worth of TRUMP tokens, the group's average holding now stand at approximately $2.11 million-buoyed in large part by the nearly $37.3 million in combined holdings from the top two holders.

But by letting go of their tokens so soon, these VIPs will lose their chance on a limited edition diamond hand NFT, which is reserved for a loyal holder who had maintained their leaderboard balances up until the dinner.

But critics are now using this phenomenon to cement their speculation that this entire gala could just be another pay-for-play tactic by the president; why else would the VIPs be so willing to sell their tokens right after the dinner snapshot?

Fans were disappointed and left hungry after the gala

While many would think that President Trump would serve up a banquet of Golden Age for his fans, but it turns out that the food was described to be "food worse than Spirit Airlines."

Some attendees also complained that they left the place still feeling hungry.

One of the attendees, 25-year-old Nicholas Pinto recalled

"The food sucked. I wasn't given any drinks other than water or Trump's wine. I don't drink, so I had water. My glass was only filled once. "

Pito also revealed that the President only made a brief appearance, and he didn't even put in the effort to interact or entertain his guests.

All in the president was there for 23 minutes, delivered a brief address rehashing old crypto talking points then left on a helicopter before taking any questions or pictures with his memecoin contest winners, attendees said.