She is known as “Don Colossus”.
At about 4.6 meters, the statue of President Donald Trump, installed on a 3.2-ton pedestal, is about the height of a two-story building — a gigantic 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 strangest money-making ventures of the Trump era. A group of cryptocurrency investors paid US$300,000 for a sculptor to create it as a tribute to Trump, an outspoken supporter of the sector.
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They then used it to promote a meme coin called $PATRIOT.
Now, improbably, the project seems close to coming to fruition. A concrete and stainless steel plinth was installed last month on the grounds of Trump’s golf complex in Doral, Florida. Pastor Mark Burns, one of the effort’s organizers and a friend of Trump, told his collaborators that the president planned to attend the dedication of the statue there, according to messages reviewed by The New York Times.
“IT LOOKS AWESOME,” Trump wrote to Burns in December.
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Almost everyone in the crypto world has tried to profit from Trump’s presidency, cutting deals with his family or seeking regulatory relief from the government. But few have tried as boldly as $PATRIOT supporters.
A meme coin is a type of cryptocurrency that has practically no function other than speculation. It’s usually based on a viral joke or celebrity mascot and is only worth what online fans are willing to pay. The crucial ingredient is internet hype — enough to convince potential buyers that the price will continue to rise.
Building a giant statue was an expensive way to ignite enthusiasm on social media. But it could be profitable. Investors who financed the statue received large amounts of these coins, which can sometimes skyrocket in value, according to one of the project’s organizers. For months, “Don Colossus” supporters have been posting images of work in progress on Platform X and making alliances in the MAGA universe, aiming to secure a marketing coup: placing the statue on official Trump property.
The $PATRIOT coin went on sale in late 2024 and briefly rose as Trump promised to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet.” At an event in Washington during inauguration weekend, supporters of the coin presented Steve Bannon, a former Trump aide, with a bronze miniature of the statue and mingled with other conservative influencers.
But delays and internal disputes have marred the venture, offering a window into the volatile world of meme coins, plagued by scams that often end up costing investors money. The price of $PATRIOT has plummeted over the past year, losing almost all of its value. As the coin’s supporters raced to finish the statue and boost sales, they clashed with Ohio sculptor Alan Cottrill.
In text messages reviewed by the Times, Cottrill said he was owed $75,000 for the statue’s intellectual property rights.
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“You are using my copyrighted image to market the token!” he wrote to one of the coin’s supporters last month.
“Yes lol, as we planned from day 1”, replied Ashley Sansalone, a crypto developer who worked on $PATRIOT, as well as a separate coin called Elon GOAT.
In a statement, Sansalone said Cottrill will be paid in full before the opening. “In any commercial agreement, there is always a portion of the values retained until the final product is completed,” he said.
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But it’s unclear when the statue will be displayed.
After the Times asked the White House and the Trump Organization about $PATRIOT on Monday, the president’s son, Eric Trump, published about it on X.
“We appreciate the support and enthusiasm,” he wrote, “but we want to make it absolutely clear — we have no involvement with this coin.”
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Creating the Don Colossus
The plan to build “Don Colossus” was born in a group on Telegram, a messaging app where crypto enthusiasts gather to exchange tips and promote coins. It was July 2024, and Donald Trump had just survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, with his fist raised in the air.
Sansalone wanted to transform that defiant image into the basis of a meme coin. He teamed up with Dustin Stockton, a right-wing activist, and Brock Pierce, a politically well-connected crypto investor with a long history of legal and financial disputes.
Shortly after the bullet grazed Trump’s ear, Sansalone reached out to Cottrill, 73, whose bronze statue of Thomas Edison is on display at the U.S. Capitol. Over the years, Cottrill has made statues of more than a dozen presidents, including 10-foot monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
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Crypto investors wanted Trump’s statue to be even taller. They also requested some aesthetic adjustments.
“I made him very faithful,” Cottrill said in an interview last month. “The crypto guys said I had to get some of my jowls removed. I had to slim it down.”
By Trump’s inauguration, Cottrill had completed the statue—a bronze goliath, still without the gold leaf, but taller than anything he had ever sculpted. In December, Trump posted a link to a story about the project on the website Breitbart News, which said Stockton was in contact with the inauguration committee, discussing plans to dedicate the statue on Trump’s swearing-in weekend.
The timing of the post was perfect. $PATRIOT had just started shipping.
“The people’s crypto token,” says the website. “The statue they couldn’t cancel.”
Then came two major setbacks. The intense cold in Washington caused logistical chaos, frustrating inauguration plans. And just before the oath of office, Trump launched his own competing meme coin, $TRUMP.
By the end of January, the price of $PATRIOT had plummeted by more than 90%.
“A place, quite a place”
Investors were cultivating an influential ally: Burns, Trump’s well-known pastor and confidant, sometimes described as the president’s informal “spiritual advisor.”
Burns began working on the project after Pierce introduced him to the team. Soon he became a key player in a plan to breathe new life into the project — covering the bronze statue with gold.
“The president just asked me for photos of his statue in gold leaf,” Burns wrote to his collaborators in November.
Trump got what he wanted. Sansalone told the group that he had consulted with a gold leaf supplier in New York who had helped clad Trump Tower. Cottrill shared a photo of the latest work.
“It’s so bright and beautiful,” Sansalone replied.
“Wow… sending it to the president,” Burns wrote.
Trump was apparently impressed. Last month, Cottrill traveled to Florida to install the 3-ton pedestal on the grounds of Trump’s golf complex in Doral (“a place, quite a place,” Stockton boasted on social media). Now, the White House scheduling team is “actively seeking” a date for the president to attend the official inauguration, Burns wrote in a message to staff in January.
It could have been a moment of triumph for Cottrill. But instead, he said he was exasperated with the investors behind the Trump statue.
Until the fall of 2024, Cottrill said, he was unaware that crypto investors were using images of his work to sell a digital currency — which he considered a violation of his intellectual property rights.
They later reached an agreement: they would pay $150,000 for the rights to the statue. He said he still expects the remainder of this payment, in addition to other amounts owed — a total of around US$90,000.
“From my point of view, they didn’t buy the IP rights and they are using it illegally,” he said. “That statue will not leave my foundry until everything owed to me is paid.”
But organizers of the effort argue the project didn’t make that much money.
Burns said he never asked for or received any compensation. And, in an interview, Stockton said that $PATRIOT was just a funding mechanism to “help fund activities around the statue.”
“I haven’t seen anyone make a lot of money,” Stockton said.
A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, Kimberly Benza, said the company had “no knowledge” of the meme coin until the Times asked about it this week. She did not respond to a question about whether the statue’s unveiling will go ahead.
c.2026 The New York Times Company
