Trump made a fortune of 25 billion dollars overnight. Have you ever seen a U.S. president "issue currency"?
Some analysts believe that Trump's direct involvement in "issuing coins" blurs the line between government roles and business interests, with 80% of TRUMP coins owned by the Trump Organization, essentially "profiting from the presidential position." At the same time, there are views that the issuance of TRUMP coins marks the opening of the political meme coin market, and the issuance of this token on decentralized exchanges is also a significant innovation for the cryptocurrency ecosystem, optimistic about the outbreak of "on-chain spring."
The cryptocurrency market is experiencing a huge shock! The only official token of Trump has been launched, is it a new prosperity or a new type of fraud?
On January 18th, local time, the elected President of the United States, Trump, announced on his social media account the launch of his personal meme coin TRUMP. Users need to visit the website with the domain name "gettrumpmemes" to obtain this meme token, which claims that TRUMP is the only "official Trump meme coin."
Once launched, the TRUMP coin became a sensation. According to price data from CoinGecko, the token started trading at an opening price of $0.1824, surging over 15,000% to about $30 within 12 hours, with the token's market capitalization skyrocketing to $32 billion, surpassing established tokens like TRON, Avalanche, Chainlink, and Shiba Inu.
Some analysts claim that Trump's direct involvement in "issuing coins" blurs the line between government roles and business interests, and that 80% of the TRUMP coins are owned by the Trump Group, essentially "profiting from the presidential position." Meanwhile, others argue that the issuance of the TRUMP coin marks the beginning of the political meme coin market, and that its issuance on decentralized exchanges is a significant innovation for the crypto ecosystem, anticipating an explosion of "on-chain spring."
Collective Carnival! Has the era of "political meme coins" begun?
The gettrumpmemes official website shows that 80% of the supply of TRUMP coins is held by Fight Fight Fight LLC, an entity jointly owned by CIC Digital and a subsidiary of the Trump Group.
The website also states that the initial issuance volume of TRUMP coins on the first day was 200 million, with an expected issuance volume of 1 billion within three years, gradually increasing over three years. CIC Digital and its affiliates will receive the revenue generated from TRUMP trading activities, locked for 3-12 months, and will be unlocked within the next 24 months.
This means that, based on a market capitalization of $32 billion, the floating profit of the Trump Group's accounts reached $25.6 billion just 12 hours after the issuance of the TRUMP coin.
The market response to the TRUMP coin has been very enthusiastic.
Data from the Appfigures platform shows that after the launch of the TRUMP coin, the cryptocurrency trading platform app Moonshot jumped to the top of the free finance app rankings in the Apple App Store in the U.S., surpassing Cash APP, Coinbase, and Cryptocom Due to the overwhelming popularity of TRUMP Coin, Binance temporarily suspended SOL withdrawals, and the SOL withdrawal channels on the Solana network and BNB Chain are temporarily closed.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, tweeted:
“Trump's launch of the token marks the official opening of the political meme coin market. Any politician who is not afraid to understand public sentiment in real-time will launch their own meme coin.”
“The token economics are false, but the FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) of this token is heading towards $100 billion.”
Prosperity or Fraud? The President's "Token" Raises Ethical Concerns
After the issuance of TRUMP Coin, Donald Trump's son Eric Trump posted on the X platform to endorse it, stating that the token is “a move for the family to enter an emerging business sector,” and added:
“I am proud of our continuous achievements in the cryptocurrency space. TRUMP Coin is currently the hottest digital meme coin on Earth.”
“The reign of terror against cryptocurrencies is over; innovation in American cryptocurrency is just beginning.”
Some media outlets pointed out that the Trump family had previously collaborated with another cryptocurrency startup called World Liberty Financial.
With the issuance of the Trump token, the Trump family's direct involvement in the cryptocurrency market and the "80% self-owned" structure of TRUMP Coin have raised some ethical concerns.
Analysts believe that this move by the Trump family further blurs the lines between government roles and business interests, indicating that they may more recklessly break traditional moral boundaries during a second term, and the high volatility of the cryptocurrency market has also raised concerns about investment losses.
Adav Noti, executive director of the nonprofit ethics organization Campaign Legal Center, believes that Trump's actions are “profiting from the presidential position”:
“Creating a financial instrument that allows people to transfer funds to the presidential family—this is unprecedented.”
Former Coinbase executive Nick Tomaino stated on social media:
“Trump owns 80% of the shares and launched it on the eve of the inauguration; this is predatory behavior, and many people may be harmed as a result.”
Hedge fund manager Jim Chanos also commented:
“The next four years will become the 'golden age of fraud.'”
It is worth mentioning that TRUMP coin is issued on decentralized exchanges, with decentralized platforms including Kraken, Raydium, Orca, and Meteora successively launching TRUMP coin.
Analyst Haotian believes, this is a phenomenal event where DEX (decentralized exchanges) challenges CEX (centralized exchanges), which may cause a short-term siphoning of existing assets on DEX, but in the long run, it is actually a great benefit, optimistic about the outbreak of "on-chain spring."