Melania Trump Faces Some Bad News With Her Controversial Hat Auction

Melania Trump ran into quite a hassle when trying to auction off a set of collector's items from her Head of State collection. It's an interesting, if not surprising way for Melania to return public life, but perhaps not so much so for the very hands-off former first lady. The Head of State collection, according to People, included an "iconic white millinery masterpiece" created by French American Designer Hervé Pierre, a watercolor painting on paper of the former first lady, created by Marc-Antoine Coulon, and an exclusive digital NFT with motion, also by Coulon. 

Both the watercolor painting and the NFT showcased the former first lady wearing the wide-brimmed white hat that was the centerpiece of the auction. The auction, which was advertised as "on-line" only; was to be done only in SOL, a type of cryptocurrency on the Solana Platform, People reported. A starting bid of $250,000 worth of SOL made the auction seem potentially profitable for both Mrs. Trump and the charities she decided would benefit as part of the auction. 

Melania's life since leaving the White House has been pretty low-key, but her recent two-week Head of State auction suffered from the SOL currency-only inclusion.

Cryptocurrencies have been all the rage since Bitcoin launched in 2009. When Melania Trump announced her online auction on January 4, the SOL was hovering around $170 for the Solana platform cryptocurrency. Everything looked as if it was going well and the highest bid was a welcome 1800 SOL, which would have been a nice boost over the opening bid of $250,000 USD. In the land of cryptocurrency, however, price fluctuates greatly based on the U.S. stock market and, by the last day of the auction on January 25, the price for one SOL unit had dropped drastically to around $93 USD, according to People. 

According to the Solana website, their were five interested parties bidding on the Head of State collection and a spokeswoman for Mrs. Trump had this to say to People: "There was a high level of interest surrounding the Head of State Collection, particularly from collectors of memorabilia and fashion artifacts. Interested parties were provided details surrounding the items in conversation over the phone."

The massive drop in valuation for the SOL cryptocurrency left a disheartening and considerable drop in price from the opening bid at the start of the auction. With part of the money set aside for charity, it seems that Melania will miss out on making a larger donation than she might have originally planned on.