WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump gathered Thursday evening at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising that he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters outside condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.

The gala dinner held at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington, where Trump flew from the White House on a military helicopter, turned into an extraordinary spectacle as hundreds of guests arrived, many having flown to the United States from overseas.

At the club’s entrance, the guests were greeted by dozens of protesters chanting “shame, shame, shame.”

It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald Trump. Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Trump and U.S. financial regulations.

“The past administration made your lives miserable,” Trump told the dinner guests, referring to the Biden administration’s enforcement actions against crypto companies.

The gala attendees made whooping noises while Trump spoke, and applauded as the president declared: “They were going after everybody. It was a disgrace frankly,” according to a video provided to the Times by a dinner guest.

Trump promised to change approach. “There is a lot of sense in crypto,” he said. “A lot of common sense in crypto. And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”

Trump and his business partners organized the dinner to promote sales of his $TRUMP cryptocurrency, a meme coin launched just days before Trump’s inauguration.

A meme coin is a type of digital currency tied to an online joke or mascot; it typically has no function beyond speculation. But Trump’s coins have become a vehicle for investors, including many foreigners, to funnel money to his family.

The president’s business partners called the dinner the world’s “most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION” and posted a leaderboard online that allowed crypto investors to calculate how many $TRUMP coins they would have to buy to earn one of the 220 seats.

As guests were flowing into the club, protesters held signs with slogans like “Stop Crypto Corruption,” “Release the guest list” and “No Kings.”

Trump spoke from a lectern adorned with the presidential seal and with American flags arrayed behind him.

Perhaps the best known crypto investor at the dinner was Justin Sun, a Chinese billionaire who runs the crypto platform Tron. He spent more than $40 million on $TRUMP coins, earning himself the top spot on the leaderboard.