The president is a cryptocurrency billionaire
For some of his supporters, the president's new cryptocurrency is even too brazen.
Donald Trump never misses a good branding opportunity. You can purchase collectible Trump trading cards, limited-edition autographed Trump guitars, $499 “Trump Won” low-top sneakers, and Trump-endorsed Bibles. Long before he entered politics, Trump was peddling booze (Trump Vodka), education (Trump University) and meat (Trump Steaks). But Trump’s latest venture — a new cryptocurrency token called $TRUMP — may be his most outrageous yet.
After his team launched the coin on Friday night, the price per coin surged from $6 to more than $70 in about a day. With two of Trump's affiliates owning 80% of the token's total supply, Trump was essentially worth over $10 billion over the weekend. At some point this weekend, Axios It is estimated that Trump dollars temporarily account for about 89% of Trump's net worth, making him one of the richest people in the world. Last night, Melania Trump announced her own currency, $MELANIA.
Throughout Trump’s long history of cashing in on his personal brand, there has never been such a dramatic infusion of human value. $TRUMP and $MELANIA are both so-called meme coins. There is no business foundation behind it and no actual use cases to speak of. Meme coins often get hyped within minutes, quickly become massively overvalued on social media, and then quickly dumped to fools who buy within minutes. It's an incredibly efficient, incredibly predictable and incredibly predatory play.
The market cycle arc of meme coins almost always bends toward zero: A token inspired by the “Hawk Tuah” girl was worth $500 million after launching late last year, but quickly lost 99% of its value. Other silly coins like the ominously named $BODEN (an unofficial, unsanctioned parody of President Joe Biden’s lame duck era) have experienced similar crashes. The story is the same in each case: Insiders and early adopters make quick profits at the expense of latecomers. While it's definitely possible that Trump's global influence will give $TRUMP more staying power than a typical memecoin, it is arguably more volatile than cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which themselves are not entirely stable. $TRUMP has lost more than half its value and is currently worth less than $8 billion.
In a sense, the $TRUMP token represents a natural move for the president. He has made significant efforts to position himself as a strong ally to the crypto industry: Trump said he planned to create a “strategic national Bitcoin reserve” and pushed for another with his three sons in the weeks before the election. A crypto business. Trump announced the coin on Friday night on “The Truth Social” alongside a pre-inauguration “Crypto Ball,” a lavish celebration hosted by tech entrepreneur and podcast host David Sacks, Trump appointed him his cryptocurrency czar. It was meant to be a ceremonial debut: After four years of what the industry interpreted as targeted sanctions and harassment from SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and other tough regulators, cryptocurrencies could finally Free to become your most complete version.
Whether meme coins are legal remains controversial. Biden’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regularly pursues cryptocurrency companies for issuing tokens that appear to violate existing securities laws. But Trump himself is picking the next SEC chairman. There’s also the question of what are Trump’s new tens of billions of dollars? on paper Eventually reaching real-world levels, as a large portion of the total token supply has not actually been issued yet, and any attempt to start cashing out will undoubtedly cause the price to drop. Still, even as Trump promised a new golden age for cryptocurrencies during his second administration, his new hypothetical billions actually cemented his interest in taking a more hands-off approach to the industry. . Remember: Trump called Bitcoin a “fraud” just a few years ago, when cryptocurrencies didn’t seem to be in his interest. Trump is far less likely to make such judgments in the future.
Another potential problem is that because memecoins are so lightly regulated, anyone can buy them, whether it's a 12-year-old with a parent's credit card or a North Korean hacker seeking to influence the global economy. Some of the available supply of Trump’s official cryptocurrency may already be controlled by foreign interests. Trump’s memecoin strategy also has the potential to inspire other world political and cultural leaders to issue similar coins. (Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, who presided over today’s inaugural prayer, has announced the release of Lorenzo Dollar coins.) If foreign powers get a hold of Trump’s so-called America First economic initiatives, the administration will turn America into The promise of “Bitcoin Superpower” begins. It feels a little empty.
While much of the crypto world has been eagerly awaiting Trump's return to the White House, some of the industry's biggest defenders have developed a new sense of unease, recognizing that meme coins don't reflect crypto well. currency. Balaji Srinivasan, an investor usually aligned with Trump, took to X over the weekend to remind his followers that Memecoin is “zero-sum.” “No wealth is created… After the initial surge, the price eventually collapses and the last buyer loses everything.” Nic Carter, a prominent cryptocurrency investor and Trump supporter, believes that this unrest Indicative of a broader panic, a slowly growing sense that Trump cannot be contained in the way the industry wants. He told me today that $Trump “brought the worst parts of the crypto industry to public view in a way that really didn’t need to happen, when we were on the cusp of legality.”
The Trump Steak may not be the juiciest steak you've ever eaten, but at least it's a real piece of meat—something you can see and touch. $TRUMP lovers won’t even get that much.