The meme coins tied to President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump have come crashing down, wiping out billions in investor wealth while also raising ethical, legal, and regulatory questions.
The First Family Meme Coins
At the same time, the Trumps are seemingly profiting big time from the presidency. The family has made $3.4 billion during his time as president, a new report has found. The New Yorker’s David Kirkpatrick recently examined just how much Trump and his family have financially benefited from his presidency. His estimate: The Trump family has reportedly gained around $3.4 billion through various products and deals.
Launched just days before Trump’s second inauguration on Jan. 17, the president’s $TRUMP token debuted at 18 cents before shooting up to nearly $75 per token within 48 hours, briefly reaching a market capitalization of more than $14.75 billion, according to New Republic. The surge didn’t last. As of this week, $TRUMP is trading around $16, representing a whopping 88 percent plunge from its January peak.
$TRUMP shows a picture of Trump holding a fist up superimposed over the words “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.”
Meanwhile, Melania Trump’s $MELANIA coin is doing even worse. After briefly climbing to $8.50 in mid-January, it has plummeted by 98 percent and now trades for less than $0.25. It is unclear what the coin, the symbol of which is a black-and-white photo of Melania smiling and with her hands clasped in front of her face, debuted at.
Meme coins are a type of cryptocurrency inspired by internet memes, viral trends, or pop culture references, often supported by passionate online communities. Unlike traditional cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ethereum, meme coins usually lack strong utility or underlying technology, making them highly speculative assets. Investors are drawn by the potential for quick profits, but meme coins also carry significant risks, including scams, manipulation, and sudden crashes.
Some have accused the $TRUMP and $MELANIA coins of being rug pulls.
A “rug pull” is a scam in the cryptocurrency and NFT space where developers abandon a project after attracting investors, typically by creating a token and then abruptly withdrawing all the liquidity or funds. This leaves investors with worthless assets.
And $TRUMP and $MELANIA investers have lost billions. According to a Chainalysis report commissioned by the New York Times, more than 813,000 crypto wallets collectively lost about $2 billion investing in $TRUMP within just 19 days of its launch. Yet, the Trump Organization and its affiliates, including CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC, have raked in roughly $100 million in trading fees.
The Financial Times previously reported that well-connected traders profited heavily from $MELANIA, scooping up millions of tokens minutes before its launch and unloading them after prices spiked, pocketing nearly $100 million.
Still, the Trump Organization holds 80% of the total token supply, meaning any future selloff could trigger another steep crash.
In January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Jake Auchincloss called for federal regulators to investigate potential conflicts of interest and “rug-pull” risks in connection to the coins. n a letter to the SEC, CFTC, Treasury Department, and the Office of Government Ethics, they argued that the tokens “allow [the Trumps] to earn extraordinary profits off his Presidency” while exposing supporters to steep financial losses. This call for an investigation seems to have stalled.