The price of President Trump's meme coin surged Wednesday after its official website and X account said the coin's top 220 holders would be invited to an exclusive gala dinner with the president next month.

The coin, called $TRUMP, briefly jumped over 70% on the announcement, before retreating. It was trading at $13.30 on Wednesday afternoon, up 50% over the past day, according to CoinDesk.

Still, its price remains far below the peak it reached shortly before Inauguration Day in January, when it soared as high as $75 amid a wave of enthusiasm for the first-ever presidential meme coin. Meme coins -- digital tokens with no utility outside their association with a celebrity, joke or internet meme -- typically plummet in value after an initial rally.

The gala dinner will be May 22 at Trump's golf club outside Washington, according to the meme coin's website. "It will be a night to remember! Thank You!" the X account for $TRUMP said in a post promoting the dinner.

The website said that the coin's 25 top holders would also get to attend a private VIP reception with Trump and tour the White House the next day.

Several senior administration officials said they were unaware that Trump was scheduled to speak at or attend such a gala or that a White House tour was part of the package. A spokeswoman for the White House crypto office said it wasn't associated with the invite and declined to comment further.

Since his inauguration, Trump has regularly hosted dinners at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, for donors who give $1 million or more to his super PAC. Holding a gala for $TRUMP coin holders would benefit the Trump family more directly, particularly if it boosts the value of the coin.

"When something like this happens, there is always a public suspicion it may lead to a potential conflict and potential undisclosed deals," said Yuliya Guseva, director of the blockchain and fintech program at Rutgers University Law School.

An affiliate of the Trump Organization -- the Trump family business -- and a Delaware LLC called Fight Fight Fight own 80% of the token's supply, according to the coin's website. The coin has already generated hundreds of millions worth of cryptocurrency profits for entities affiliated with Trump, according to the blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis.

Miguel Carlos, a 37-year-old business owner and Trump supporter in California, said he was thrilled at the news about the gala dinner with the president. Carlos said he initially bought 1,500 $TRUMP meme coins around the time of its launch but has since sold most of his holdings.

"The moment I saw the news, I was like 'oh great, there's utility behind the token now, it's not just a meme anymore," said Carlos, who still holds 100 $TRUMP tokens.

Last week, with the three-month anniversary of $TRUMP's launch, investors had been expecting the start of a process that allows insiders to cash out of their holdings. Such "unlocks" typically result in sharp drops in a coin's price. On Wednesday, along with announcing the gala dinner, the coin's X account said the unlocking process would be delayed by 90 days.

Whether $TRUMP holders can attend the gala dinner -- black tie optional -- depends on their average balance of the coins between Wednesday and May 12, according to an FAQ on the website. That could give deep-pocketed investors an incentive to buy coins to win an audience with the president.

"The combination of potential access to Trump and explicit incentives to hold strongly suggests an effort to provide value to the token, perhaps in response to the sharp decline in price since launch," said Dylan Bane, an analyst with crypto-data firm Messari.

Trump and his family have pursued a number of private crypto initiatives in recent months, disregarding critics who say such businesses pose an obvious conflict of interest when the president oversees how digital currencies are regulated.

A crypto firm controlled by the Trump family called World Liberty Financial is launching a stablecoin, a popular type of cryptocurrency designed to hold its value at $1. Stablecoins are commonly used to store cash or pay for purchases of other tokens. Last month the president's two oldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., said they were investing in a bitcoin-mining company. Trump's social-media company has also said it plans to launch exchange-traded funds linked to cryptocurrencies.

Trump has called himself the "crypto president," pledging to promote the industry's growth. He hired venture capitalist David Sacks to be an artificial-intelligence and crypto "czar" and in March established a national stockpile of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Around the same time, Trump hosted a group of industry executives at the White House for an industry summit.

Trump raised more than $10 million for his inauguration from cryptocurrency companies and executives, a filing viewed by The Wall Street Journal showed. And he has raised substantial sums from such companies for his separate political-action committee.

Crypto investors are hopeful the industry will continue to gain momentum in the coming weeks with the passage of legislation that establishes how stablecoins are regulated.

Next month's gala invite has some fine print. The terms and conditions on the website warn that Trump might not be able to attend the dinner and that it could be canceled for any reason. If that is the case, attendees will instead receive a "limited edition TRUMP NFT," a sort of digital trading card that amounts to Trump memorabilia.

All costs incurred by attending the dinner, the website adds, will be at attendees' own expense.