Trump launches meme coin. Rakes in over $25 billion in value overnight
President-elect Donald Trump late Friday launched a cryptocurrency token that exploded in value overnight, potentially increasing his net worth by tens of billions of dollars on paper just days before he is set to be sworn in as president.
Trump launched the so-called memecoin — a digital token with no intrinsic real-world value that is traded on a digital ledger technology called blockchain — with posts on his social media site and X after 9 p.m., prompting the asset to soar in value. Its market capitalization was above $5 billion as of 2:30 p.m. Saturday, according to data from CoinGecko, and it has seen more than $11 billion in trading volume.
A Trump-owned company called CIC Digital LLC owns 80 percent of the coin’s supply, according to its website. Two hundred million of the tokens are currently available, with the circulation set to grow to 1 billion over the next three years, according to the site.
The product launch illustrates the lengths Trump is going to embrace the crypto industry and the blurred ethical lines he may be crossing as he prepares to take office. He has previously sold crypto trading cards and his sons launched a digital asset company called World Liberty Financial last August. He also spoke at a major bitcoin conference during the campaign.
His financial ties to crypto come as he is vowing to enact an array of policies that would benefit the industry, including overhauling how digital assets are regulated and having the government stockpile bitcoin. [Continue reading…]
President-elect Trump launched his own cryptocurrency overnight and swiftly appeared to make more than $25 billion on paper for himself and his companies.
Why it matters: The stunning launch of $TRUMP caught the entire industry off-guard, and speaks to both his personal influence and the ascendancy of cryptocurrency in his administration.
- It also speaks to the nature of the crypto industry that someone could have $25 billion worth of something that literally did not exist 24 hours previously.
The cryptocurrency industry, fresh off a 2024 elections spending spree, has turned its influence efforts in recent months to a new target: celebrating the start of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term.
Leading crypto firms have pumped at least $10 million into the Trump inaugural fund, and top executives are flocking to Washington ahead of the incoming president’s swearing-in on Monday.
Crypto companies including Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken, Robinhood and Circle have made seven-figure donations to Trump’s inaugural committee since Election Day — part of a wave of corporate contributions that Trump has reeled in as big businesses scrambled to curry favor with the incoming administration. [Continue reading…]
Trump and his family are clear in the marketing of the new token that the image picked for the coin had been inspired by the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.
“President Trump faced death and came up fighting!” the website promoting the tokens says.
Cryptocurrency markets tend to be highly volatile, in part because tokens are not backed by any tangible assets. The website for Mr. Trump’s new venture includes an extensive collection of disclaimers limiting the ability of anyone buying the token to file a class-action lawsuit related to it and warning buyers that “Trump Memes may be extremely volatile, and price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies could impact the price.”
Mr. Trump has already made clear that he will be working to promote the cryptocurrency industry.
He has announced his intention to appoint regulators who will lift restrictions on the sale of new tokens and ties between cryptocurrency companies and other more traditional financial enterprises. [Continue reading…]