10/05/2024 Donald Trump dines with NFT mega-collectors during break from New York hush-money trial

Between days of testimony by Stormy Daniels, the adult-film star who claims she had sex with Trump in 2006, the former president is meeting NFT collectors at Mar-a-Lago

In 2019, then-president Donald Trump hosted a meal at the White House for members of the Clemson Tigers American-football team featuring items from the fast-food chains Domino’s, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian, via Flickr

In 2019, then-president Donald Trump hosted a meal at the White House for members of the Clemson Tigers American-football team featuring items from the fast-food chains Domino’s, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger KingOfficial White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian,via Flickr

The Manhattanhush-money trialof the former US president Donald Trump is in recess on Wednesdays, providing the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 US general election with a valuable window for campaigning. Today (8 May), Trump is using that window to have dinner with buyers of his NFTs (non-fungible tokens) at his Florida club and residence, Mar-a-Lago.

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The dinner, first reported byAxios, is a perk for major buyers of Trump’s so-called “MugShot Edition NFT”, a series of “digital trading cards” offered at $99 apiece, some of which feature images based on the mug shottakenof Trump when he was arrested in Georgia in August 2023 on racketeering charges. (Other NFTs in the series, designed by the illustrator Clark Mitchell, feature Trump in place of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, Trump as a cyborg and Trump as a steampunk superhero.)

Supporters who bought at least 47 editions of the NFTs are invited to tonight’s dinner with Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, and will receive a piece of the suit he was wearing when the mugshot was taken. Supporters who bought 100 of the MugShot NFTs will receive additional perks including pieces of the suitandthe tie Trump wore in the mugshot, seating at a VIP table during the dinner and a cocktail reception with Trump before the event.

The company that created the MugShot NFTs is not affiliated with Trump’s campaign, although the former president did recorda videopromoting the NFTs and the limited-edition physical cards featuring fragments of his suit—”it was a great suit, believe me, a really good suit”. According to Trump’s most recent financial disclosures, he made between $100,000 and $1m from NFTs in 2022. Trump’s campaign has offered plenty ofphysical productsof its own monetising the famous photograph.

After Wednesday night’s dinner for mega-collectors of Trump NFTs, the former president will be back in court in Manhattan on Thursday morning, when his lawyers will resume their cross-examination of the adult-film star Stormy Daniels, the star witness in the hush-money case brought against Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg Jr. The case revolves around the reimbursement of hush-money payments to Daniels made by Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to keep her from telling the story of her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 (which he denies ever took place).

Melania Trump, the former president’s wife, has been far more active than her husband in the NFT space, releasing several series of digital collectibles in recent years commemorating everything from the1969 Apollo 11 moon landing,US monumentslike Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty to “important moments” in US history,her own eyesandChristmas.

Arts

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/05/08/donald-trump-dining-with-nft-mega-collectors-during-break-from-new-york-hush-money-trial

Interesting NFTs
CryptoPunk #4220
The CryptoPunks are 10,000 uniquely generated characters. No two are exactly alike, and each one of them can be officially owned by a single person on the Ethereum blockchain. Originally, they could be claimed for free by anybody with an Ethereum wallet, but all 10,000 were quickly claimed. Now they must be purchased from someone via the marketplace that's also embedded in the blockchain.
#53677
By OthersideDeployer
Ed
*waves*! I'm Ed. I'm often referred to as the Ron Weasley of the group. It's not common knowledge, but my ancestry connects me to Martin Luther King Jr.. We're so fur-tunate to have found each other!
Alex in Wonderland
A figure, Alex, stands mostly naked in the midst of a physical and psychological maelstrom. He is clad only in nostalgic 80’s era socks, on a tenuous island between active waters and a variety of shark denizens. Sharks on the right side of the image are all beached, including a shark with a quartz crystal snout, an orange shark wrapped in a life buoy, and a shark further in the distance wearing an 80’s style shirt with the number “88”. On the left side is the largest shark, wearing bright glossy red lipstick and brandishing prominent teeth with braces. She is cordoned off from the figure by a roped float divider, and within her thought bubble is a warning symbol. Behind the figure, hovering in the air, are Grey aliens emerging from the distance, out of a series of elliptical UFO shaped interdimensional membranes. The Greys take on the visual form of spermazoa ostensibly impregnating the interdimensional thresholds. As is typical, these Greys inhabit a zone just behind the unconscious topology of Alex’s dissociative mind. Though Alex’s bottom half is representative, his top half mutates into a psychological cornucopia. In a manner akin to “Auto-Erotic Sphinx”, a predecessor work, the figure has self suctioned—an act of sensual infatuation, enjoyment, and exploration. Upward exists the figure’s primary conscious eye, adorned with a revolutionary beret emblazoned with a Bitcoin badge. The figure’s summit features the nose of a fighter jet facing off against video game Bullet Bills, one of whom is marked by a communist North Korean star. A cropped section of a UFO observes the contest. Alex’s mind branches both left and right. To the left is more singular embodied consciousness, manifesting two eyes and a Ganesh trunk grasping crayons. The right branch dissociates upward diagonally, emerging into an array of eyes, faces, teeth, tail, a unicorn horn, and much more—all of which participate in expressing his unconscious being; a democracy of psychic factions representing thought impressions and associations. All illumination and darkness– fernal, infernal, high consciousness and corporeal underbelly–reside in this realm. In the distance are relatively languid, light clouds, and against the firmament hovers a colossal distant eye peering over the scene and far beyond. This painting possesses underlying genetic traits with previous works such as “Auto-Erotic Sphinx with Toys”, “Dionysus”, and “Fuku-Shiva”. The work serves also as a nod to an earlier period of art inspiration during late teens and early twenties— born out of the nakedness, vulnerability, curiosity, and wonder inherent to coming of age and all subsequent psychedelic revelation.
Gunky's Uprising
Gunky's Uprising by SSX3LAU Slimesunday and 3LAU team up once again under their alias SSX3LAU for a collection featuring their first exploration into color. TBD is a full length music video featuring an unreleased song from 3LAU and Slimesunday\u2019s mesmerizing animation. In a first for the artists, TBD\u2019s collector will have the opportunity to name the song (some restrictions apply).