Trump’s new meme coin and crypto token soar on first day in office | News about Donald Trump
A crypto project associated with United States President Donald Trump, World Liberty Financial (WLF), has raised $1 billion in a token sale, while the new Trump meme coin also soared to more than $10 billion in market value as Trump took office for his second term .
The WLF made the announcement on Monday, the day Trump was sworn in as president.
The boom in Trump-linked crypto ventures comes as he promises to usher in a “golden age” for cryptocurrencies, in stark contrast to regulatory oversight of the industry implemented under the administration of former President Joe Biden.
The WLF, promoted and founded by Trump, his sons and Trump’s new special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was launched two months before the US election.
Trump’s new meme coin, ticked $TRUMP, was launched Friday night during the first Crypto Ball in Washington, DC, as part of the inauguration festivities. The coin rose on Monday from less than $10 on Saturday morning to as high as $74.59 before giving up its massive run.
The new coin has expanded Trump’s cryptocurrency interests beyond the WLF.
Melania Trump launched her own coin, $MELANIA, on Sunday. Its rise has pushed its market cap well past $1 billion.
Four-fifths of the Trump coin tokens are owned by CIC Digital, a subsidiary of Trump’s business, and another entity called Fight, Fight, Fight, according to its website. It says the coins are “an expression of support and engagement with the ideals and beliefs embodied by the ‘$TRUMP’ symbol” and are not an investment or security.
The WLF’s launch just two months before the US election in November has raised concerns about ethics and conflicts of interest. Friday night’s launch of the meme coin also raised concerns, even among those in the cryptocurrency industry.
“While it’s tempting to dismiss this as just another Trump spectacle, the launch of an official Trump token opens a Pandora’s box of ethical and regulatory issues,” said Justin D’Anethan, an independent crypto analyst based in Hong Kong.
Cryptocurrency attorney Preston Byrne published a blog post on Sunday predicting a civil lawsuit against the coin.
“Somebody’s going to lose money, some lawyer is going to come up with a theory and file,” Byrne wrote. “The launch of memecoin is, from a purely political perspective, a huge unforced error.”
Byrne declined further comment.
‘Crypto President’
The Trump Organization said this month that the president will hand over day-to-day management of his multibillion-dollar real estate, hotel, golf, media and licensing portfolio to his children when he enters the White House.
By 14:45 EST (19:45 GMT), Trump’s coin was trading at $42.20, giving it a market capitalization of about $8.5 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Twenty-four-hour trading volume was nearly $40 billion, CoinMarketCap data showed.
WLF sold nearly 22 billion tokens on Monday, according to the company’s website, surpassing its initial goals.
That includes a total investment of $75 million from Tron founder Justin Sun, who has been indicted for crypto-related fraud and securities violations during the Biden administration.
Excitement over so-called meme coins helped push cryptocurrency prices higher as traders and investors grew hopeful that Trump would follow through on his promise to be a “crypto president” by loosening regulations and promoting digital asset ownership.
Several key figures in the Trump administration and his circles have ties to the crypto industry.
Bitcoin hit $104,031 on inauguration day and has jumped nearly 7 percent so far this month.
The Trump and Melania cryptocurrencies were created on the lesser-known Solana blockchain, which CoinMarketCap ranks as the third largest blockchain network.
Solana’s coin price also rose over the weekend, hitting an all-time high of $294.33 on Sunday.
“The cryptocurrency market gained additional traction in the last few hours due to the launch of TRUMP and MELANIA cryptocurrencies just before the inauguration,” Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Conotoxia Ltd, said in a statement.
Blurring the lines
Peter Schiff, Chief Economist and Global Strategist at Euro Pacific Asset Management, pointed to the jump in value of $TRUMP and called it the new digital gold, on social media.
Forbes estimates Trump’s net worth at $6.7 billion. This does not include the value, at least on paper, of $TRUMP coins or his earnings from the WLF.
The prospect of looser regulations around crypto policy was met with fanfare in the industry and fueled Bitcoin’s rally after Trump’s election victory in November.
The huge increase in the price of the new coins has caused concern among some analysts.
“Cryptocurrency memes like these are prone to large fluctuations and we generally consider them a speculative asset,” said Drozdz of Conotoxia.
Trump’s coin represented the merging of the world of decentralized finance into the political arena, but it also “blurs the lines between governance, profit and influence,” said D’Anethan, a Hong Kong-based crypto analyst.
“Should public figures, especially those with such political influence, have that kind of influence in speculative markets? It is an issue that regulators are unlikely to ignore,” he said.
The Trump and Melania Trump coin websites avoid calling them cryptocurrencies, instead using the phrase “fungible crypto assets” in their FAQs.
On Sunday, Donald Trump Jr announced on X that the $TRUMP coin is “the hottest digital meme in the world” and that the WLF will be “the future of finance.”
“We’re just getting started,” he said.
