There Will Be Bills

This story in The New York Times has it all: a giant statute of Donald Trump, gold leaf, crypto, Zanesville, Ohio, and — unavoidably — an unpaid bill.

It's known as "Don Colossus."

At 15 feet tall, the statue of President Trump, mounted on its 7,000-pound pedestal, is about the height of a two-story building — a giant effigy cast in bronze and finished with a thick layer of gold leaf.

For more than a year, the golden statue has been at the center of one of the stranger moneymaking ventures of the Trump era. A group of cryptocurrency investors paid $300,000 to have a sculptor create it as a tribute to Mr. Trump, an outspoken crypto proponent.

Then they used it to promote a memecoin called $PATRIOT.

Now, improbably, the project appears close to fruition. A pedestal made of concrete and stainless steel was installed last month on the grounds of Mr. Trump's golf complex in Doral, Fla. Pastor Mark Burns, one of the organizers of the effort and a friend of Mr. Trump's, told his collaborators that the president planned to attend the statue's unveiling there, according to messages reviewed by The New York Times.

"It LOOKS FANTASTIC," Mr. Trump wrote to Mr. Burns in December.

Sounds like everything’s going well. Can’t imagine anything going sideways with this cast of characters.

But delays and infighting have marred the venture, offering a window into the volatile world of memecoins, which are plagued by scams that often end up costing investors money. The $PATRIOT coin's price cratered last year, losing nearly all its value. As the coin's backers rushed to finish the statue and boost coin sales, they clashed with their Ohio-based sculptor, Alan Cottrill.

In text messages reviewed by The Times, Mr. Cottrill said he was owed $75,000 for the intellectual property rights to the statue.

"You are using my copyrighted image in marketing your token!" he wrote to one of the coin's backers last month.

"Yes lol as we planned to from day 1," replied Ashley Sansalone, a crypto developer who worked on $PATRIOT, as well as a separate coin called Elon GOAT.

It’s the story of Trump’s America in a rancid nutshell. There is always an unpaid bill. There is always someone left holding the bag. The unfortunate soul holding that bag is never Trump. 

It’s a timely tale and also a vision of our future. Once the last of the gilded statues has been raised and the last Trump memecoin has inevitably fallen to zero, our balance due will stretch the limits of measurability. It will take generations to pay if we’re able to pay it at all.