‘Don Colossus’: Golden Trump statue crippled by crypto pay dispute
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The bust portion of a 4.6m statue of US President Donald Trump, coated in gold leaf, lying in the studio of sculptor Alan Cottrill in Ohio, the US.
PHOTO: AFP
ZANESVILLE Ohio – Lying on its back at an Ohio sculpture studio, the 4.6m tall gold-leafed statue of US President Donald Trump dubbed “Don Colossus” by its creators is, perhaps, not quite at its best.
The massive bronze work, slated to stand two storeys tall once installed on a 2,720kg base, depicts a defiant Mr Trump raising his fist in the moments after he survived an assassination attempt
But the wait for the US$360,000 (S$458,200) statue to be erected has been more than a year, partly because sculptor Alan Cottrill has yet to be paid. It was commissioned by cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and backers of Mr Trump, who was then a candidate.
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 Mr 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 Mr Cottrill, 73, who says he is still owed around US$92,000.
Mr 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 capitalises on a cultural moment to build its price through speculation and the building of a community.
Mr 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 US$1.4 billion in 2025 from digital assets alone.
Going on sale in November 2024, the $PATRIOT meme coin garnered significant interest among Mr Trump’s fans, as he swept the US presidential election that month.
Its momentum, however, was swiftly undercut by Mr Trump launching his own cryptocurrency, $TRUMP
$PATRIOT’s value tanked as $TRUMP’s rose. Although the coin continues to trade, its value is more than 95 per cent off its peak.
Those behind the coin include Mr 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 adviser Steve Bannon plead guilty to defrauding donors.
Mr Stockton did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
At his studio in Zanesville, Ohio, 482km west of the US capital Washington, Mr Cottrill speaks proudly of his work.
Mr Cottrill has made at least 17 artworks of US presidents, as well as a statue of US inventor Thomas Edison that stands at the US Capitol, and was excited at the scale of the Trump project.
“When they said 15-feet (4.6m) 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.
Mr 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 Mr 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.”
More than a year after it was completed, the statue now finally appears to have a home, at the Trump National Doral golf complex in Miami, with Mr Cottrill installing the base in January.
An unveiling date, however, remains elusive.
Asked for his take on dealing with the cryptocurrency world, Mr Cottrill was succinct.
“The short answer is, I won’t do it again.” AFP
