When a group of crypto bros spent $300,000 commissioning a 15-foot gold statue of Donald Trump, their grift seemed solid enough. Their memecoin, $PATRIOT — for which the Trump sculpture served as a sort of promotional stunt — would soon go to the Moon, covering the costs of the piece and then some.
Shockingly, the exact opposite happened. Despite securing a “juicy, juicy spot” for the statue at the president’s resort, Trump National Doral Miami, $PATRIOT crashed to the ground. Today, the memecoin — which boasted a market cap as high as $77.7 million around Trump’s return to office in January of 2025 — now stands at just $2.8 million, while the toweringeffigy gathers dust in Ohio.
Now, fresh reporting by the New York Times documents the wild ride that turned a group of crypto goons into a national laughing stock.
For a very brief moment prior to Trump’s second inauguration, the coin surged, sustaining millions of dollars in daily trading volume in anticipation of the president’s promise to turn the country into the “crypto capital of the planet.” The backers, a motley crew of libertarian crypto developers and MAGA faithful, successfully drummed up social media frenzy, even gaining approval from former Trump aide Steve Bannon.
Then reality arrived, as it always does seems to when memecoins are involved. Infighting erupted as the token cratered, driven down by the release of Trump’s own scammy memecoin, $TRUMP. The sculptor contracted to build the statue, Alan Cottrill, soon called in a $90,000 debt the crypto bros owed for using his work to market their digital currency.
“You are using my copyrighted image in marketing your token!” Cottrill exclaimed to the contract-holders in a text message viewed by the NYT.
“Yes lol as we planned to from day 1,” rejoined Ashley Sansalone, one of the crypto developers involved.
Until the group pays the final $90,000, Cottrill says he’s under no obligation to release the statue.
“As far as I’m concerned, they haven’t bought the rights to the IP, and they’re using it illegally,” the sculptor told the NYT. “That statue will not leave my foundry until everything they owe me is paid.”
More on crypto: If Bitcoin Keeps Tanking, It Could Cause a “Death Spiral” for the Entire Economy
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