'Don Colossus': Golden Trump statue crippled by crypto pay dispute
The massive bronze work, slated to stand two-storeys tall once installed on a 6,000-pound (2,720-kg) base, depicts a defiant Trump raising his fist in the moments after he survived an assassination attempt in July 2024.
But the $360,000 statue, commissioned by cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and backers of then-candidate Trump, has waited more than a year to be erected, partly because sculptor Alan Cottrill has yet to get paid.
Its fate -- dreamt up by crypto creators but consigned to financial purgatory -- is an illustration of the volatile nature of deals in the world of cryptocurrency, and indeed in Trump's own mercurial circles of influence.
"I would be a fool to install it without the payment being made, and I am not a fool," says Cottrill, 73, who says he is still owed around $92,000.
Cottrill alleges that after he was commissioned to make the sculpture, the project's backers went behind his back to start using the art to promote their $PATRIOT cryptocurrency.
$PATRIOT is a meme coin -- a digital asset that has no intrinsic value but that capitalizes on a cultural moment to build its price through speculation and the building of a community.
Trump's close ties to the crypto sector have sparked accusations of massive conflicts of interest. Bloomberg News estimates that the Trump family fortune grew by $1.4 billion last year from digital assets alone.
Going on sale in November 2024, the $PATRIOT meme coin garnered significant interest among Trump's fans, as he swept the US presidential election that month.
Its momentum, however, was swiftly undercut by Trump launching his own cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, days before the January inauguration -- and the planned unveiling of the "Don Colossus" statue associated with $PATRIOT.
$PATRIOT's value tanked as $TRUMP's rose. Although the coin continues to trade, its value is more than 95 percent off its peak.
Those behind the coin include Dustin Stockton, a Republican strategist who was investigated by federal agents in connection with his work on "We Build The Wall" in a case that saw key Trump advisor Steve Bannon plead guilty to defrauding donors.
Stockton did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
'Just overpowering'
At his studio in Zanesville, Ohio, about 300 miles west of the US capital Washington, Cottrill speaks proudly of his work.
Cottrill has made at least 17 US presidents, as well as a statue of Thomas Edison that stands at the US Capitol, and was excited at the scale of the Trump project.
"When they said 15-feet tall, they were starting to get to the scale of my ego," he laughed.
It took him a month to make the life-sized figure, and another three to scale it, cast it in bronze and for his team to painstakingly polish and buff the outer surface.
"It's just overpowering. It's mammoth," he says.
Cottrill said he had sculpted the 79-year-old Republican leader's "turkey neck" but the crypto backers were aghast and asked for a more flattering, less realistic look.
Another challenge, he says, was Trump's signature hairstyle.
"The hardest thing was sculpting his hair. Holy shmoly! Oi yoi yoi!" he exclaims.
"You can't sculpt and cast something that is..." he paused, trying to find the right word, "wispy."
An unveiling date, however, remains elusive.
Asked for his take on dealing with the cryptocurrency world, Cottrill was succinct.
"The short answer is, I won't do it again."