Trump Meme Coin Reaps $50 Billion, Is It Part of BTC National Strategy?

Source: Geek Park

Officially taking office as the President of the United States, withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dealing with the TikTok ban, revoking the preferential policy for electric vehicles, and ending the birthright citizenship of illegal immigrants... Trump did a lot of things on his first day in office. After all, before taking office, he had declared that "I will issue hundreds of executive orders on my first day in office."

But two days before he officially became the President of the United States, he took the time out of his busy schedule to do an "abstract behavior": issuing his own digital currency, Trump Coin ($Trump).

On January 18, two days before becoming the President of the United States, Trump announced his new business on Truth, a social media developed by his own group: he released a meme coin named $Trump, with the slogan "Join my very unique Trump community", and printed the meme image of Trump waving his fist in the assassination in July on the token.

The official announcement at 10 a.m., by the afternoon, $Trump's market value had risen to $5.5 billion, and the next day the total market value soared to nearly $15 billion. The price of a single coin soared from the initial $0.1824 to a maximum of $82, an increase of nearly 45,000%.

On January 20, First Lady Melania Trump also issued her own cryptocurrency, also in the form of a meme coin, named $MELANIA, with a beautiful photo of Melania attached. On January 21, Trump's youngest son Barron, who claimed to have "grown up under the eyes of Americans," also issued the meme coin of the same name "BARRON", which once soared to $400 million in market value.

You should know that Trump had previously called cryptocurrency a "scam", saying that it was not a real currency, was built on air, and could promote illegal activities. As a result, two days before the president took office, Trump not only issued cryptocurrency himself, but his wife also joined in after seeing the sharp rise in market value.

Is this a successful harvest of the first family of the United States? Or is it the "personal" support of cryptocurrency by the new rulers?

01 LegitimatelyCut leeks

To be honest, $Trump's official website looks very much like an irregular digital currency scam website.

The promotion of Trump meme coin does look like a copycat coin｜Image source: Trump Meme

The person waving his fist in the air is not sure if it is AI Trump or Trump with severe beauty enhancement. His signature fluffy hair is not even combed cleanly, forming a strange white edge against the blue background.

And just under the two purchase methods, a line of small print reads "Trump Meme is intended to express support and participation in the ideals and beliefs embodied in $Trump and related artworks. It is not intended to be any type of investment opportunity and is also non-political."

In the often overlooked "Terms of Use", there is a special bolded small print. In addition to repeating the above paragraph, it also adds "We absolutely do not promise or guarantee that the value of Trump Meme will increase or maintain the price you purchased it at." and "All transactions are non-refundable, and we are not responsible for loss and inaccessibility." Another bold paragraph is added at the bottom of the terms, "Class Action Waiver", which means that this clause prohibits users from filing, joining or participating in class actions.

When promoting this meme coin, the website wrote that Trump showed the world the demeanor of a leader in the assassination, ignited a movement with strength and courage, and waved his fists and shouted "Fight!" It is the most memorable Meme of this century.

The website also compares buying $TRUMP to "This is your chance to join a community dedicated to fighting for important things! Own a piece of history!"

The entire website is filled with Trump's personal worship, which highly meaningfully represents a financial behavior and continues to strip it of its financial essence.

There is no introduction to the characteristics of meme coins, such as low unit price, larger volatility than general cryptocurrencies, and short lifespan. There is no explanation of the Solana blockchain technology it is based on, and users are only given a one-word notice.

The simplest Q&A｜Image source: Trump Meme

The meme coins that have become popular in recent years rely largely on their traffic, just before $TRUMP, the most popular meme coin: Dogecoin (DOGE). Previously, the price of Trump Coin surged after Musk was appointed as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump won the election.

Therefore, some people believe that Trump is giving his "redneck" fans a chance to be financially free.

However, according to a disclosure on the website selling tokens, the total supply of Trump Coin is 1 billion, with an initial circulation of 200 million, and the remaining 800 million belonging to companies associated with Trump, which will be gradually released in the next three years. With the sale of tokens, Trump will get a lot of money in cash.

This also led Adav Noti, executive director of the non-profit ethics organization Campaign Legal Centre, to publicly state: "This is actually using the presidency to make money - creating a financial tool that allows people to transfer money directly to the president's family through the presidential office. It is unprecedented."

People in the currency circle can't sit still. Former Coinbase executive Nick Tomaino also said on X that "Trump owns 80% of the token shares, and it was launched just before the inauguration. This is a predatory behavior and many people will suffer as a result."

Former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinvasan also warned that "meme coins are zero-sum lotteries that do not create wealth. After a surge, they will eventually collapse, and the last person to take over will lose everything."

Hedge fund manager Jim Chanos bluntly said, "This means that the next four years will be a golden age of fraud."

Image source: X

As for this wave of "cutting people's leeks" remarks, Trump's second son Eric said frankly, "I am very proud of our achievements in encryption. $Trump is currently the hottest digital meme coin on the planet, and this is just the beginning."

Indeed, before the birth of $Trump, Forbes estimated Trump's net worth at $6.7 billion, and after the emergence of $Trump, including the 800 million $Trumps held by his affiliated companies, theoretically his assets can reach $51 billion. The wealth accumulated by three generations of the Trump family for a hundred years is not as good as the cashing out of meme coins in a few hours.

After the cashing out of political wealth, Trump seems to be accumulating economic wealth for his last term. This also perfectly fits Trump's two identities: businessman and politician. 02 Trump, who started as a traditional businessman, used to dislike cryptocurrency. He has expressed his dissatisfaction with cryptocurrency on social media and TV interviews many times. He called it a "scam", "built on air" and "will promote illegal activities". However, in recent years, with his interactions with Silicon Valley elites, Trump's mentality has also changed, especially in the 2024 campaign year, his attitude towards cryptocurrency has taken a 180-degree turn. Last July, just ten days after his assassination, Trump appeared at the annual Bitcoin conference and gave a speech. He said that if he could return to the White House, he would ask the government to build a large Bitcoin reserve, deconstruct the existing chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and choose a cryptocurrency-friendly regulator (which he has already done). He also promised to form a presidential advisory committee on the crypto industry to make the United States the "cryptocurrency capital of the earth."

Trump attends the 2024 Bitcoin Conference | Source: Reuters

As soon as this speech came out, the currency circle was boiling, because during Biden's term, the regulation of the crypto industry was unprecedentedly strict. The government came forward to suppress Bitcoin, promote central bank digital currency, and even arrested currency circle giants.

Trump, who publicly supported Bitcoin, also received a return from the currency circle.

According to his campaign aides, since the Trump campaign team announced in May that it would accept cryptocurrency donations, it raised about $7.5 million in digital token donations within two months. Trump also mentioned in his speech that he raised $25 million from the crypto industry.

After Trump won the election, Bitcoin soared to a record high, breaking through the price of $100,000 per coin, and even broke through $110,000 on the eve of the inauguration.The Bitcoin industry used this to help the new president "set off fireworks."

Dogecoin soared 135%, and the entire cryptocurrency market transaction volume surged. This craze was slightly extinguished before Trump's inauguration, and it became popular again after the Trump family continuously launched meme coins.

Bitcoin trend after Trump's election | Source: Google

As a politician, I support whatever my opponents oppose. Trump has quickly accumulated goodwill in the cryptocurrency circle within a year. Even when several bigwigs criticized $Trump this time, they had to praise the new president's recognition of the industry. At present, major media and practitioners have revealed that Trump will issue an executive order that is favorable to cryptocurrencies soon.

As a businessman, Trump's eldest son and second son successively established cryptocurrency companies last year. Since he wants to lead the US government to embrace cryptocurrency, it is better to make this wave of money for his family first.

First Lady Melania Trump's meme coin｜Source: X

However, they do not seem to plan to delve into the field of cryptocurrency for a long time, but choose to rely on the wave of traffic before Trump's inauguration ceremony to issue the fastest-changing meme coin. In the digital currency industry, the Trump family has ambitions, but not big, revealing the business sense of just wanting to make money quickly.

No matter how much $Trump claims to "support ideals", as the President of the United States, Trump has the power to influence the ups and downs of an industry. He uses this power and traffic to speculate on the currency with his family's IP. Although it looks ugly, it is also the best combination of his three identities as a businessman, an Internet celebrity, and a politician.

Caroline Mauron, co-founder of Orbit Markets, described the Trump family's coin issuance as "not fully anticipated even by the cryptocurrency industry... I think people were expecting him to implement a more traditional policy approach."

This view also condenses the attitude of many people in the cryptocurrency circle: shocked, confused, looking forward to Trump's support for the industry, and afraid that he would disrupt the order of the industry.

This is just like what Trump did to traditional American politics: he entered the game, reshuffled the cards, played cards against the rules, and subverted the establishment.

On the other hand, the new president's alternative support for the crypto industry has also made it more likely that Bitcoin will become a strategic reserve in the United States. Not only are large Silicon Valley companies hoarding more Bitcoin publicly or privately, but at least eight state managements across the country are planning to rush to increase their cryptocurrency plans.

Just as no one can predict the behavior and psychology of the new president, the soaring and plummeting $Trump may be just the beginning for the crypto industry.