President-elect Donald Trump has made crypto headlines again this week.
This time, Trump is in the news for launching $TRUMP, his new Solana-based memecoin.
This move has sparked widespread debate and has captured the attention of both crypto enthusiasts and skeptics.
The new token has skyrocketed to billions of dollars in market cap within mere days, and there are ongoing questions about its legitimacy.
What could Trump’s reason for doing this be? Does he even have a reason?
Trump announced the launch of $TRUMP late on Friday last week, via Truth Social, his social media platform.
He described this move as a “celebration of everything [we] stand for”, including his presidential victory and his upcoming inauguration.
This coin has quickly gained attention so far, with its price skyrocketing by over 300% mere hours after the announcement.
The token eventually stopped at around $29 apiece on Friday, and has skyrocketed even further to the $62 mark as of writing, according to data from DexScreener.
This token was developed on the Solana blockchain and was initially limited to 200 million coins.
However, this supply is expected to expand to a cap of 1 billion over the next three years.
According to the coin’s website, the new $TRUMP token is a “non-political digital asset with no ties to Trump’s campaign or government activities”:
Even though according to data from Arkham Intelligence, 80% of this supply is currently held by Trump Organization affiliates CIC Digital LLC and “Fight Fight Fight” LLC.
Despite this amazing rise in value, there has been much controversy around this token launch, as expected.
Critics have questioned the transparency of the project, especially as such a large supply is owned by Trump affiliated companies.
More than this, these companies are expected to receive separate revenue from trading activity.
Furthermore, the coin’s website also shows that $TRUMP is “not an investment opportunity or a security of any type.”
This disclaimer/warning hasn’t done much to quench the ongoing skepticism around the project.
Considering the rash of social media hacks throughout the previous year, many observers initially believed the Trump social accounts to be hacked at the time of the announcement.
However, the plot thickened further when unrelated posts promoting $TRUMP came after the original.
The latest $TRUMP coin isn’t the first crypto-related venture Donald Trump has jumped into.
Over the years, the Trump Brand has been affiliated with several kinds of merchandise from NFTs to crypto trading platforms.
Some examples of these were the $100,000 Trump-branded watches and the three collections of NFT trading cards.
Trump also sold branded sneakers at some point, with the NFT line alone generating a whopping $7.2 million in licensing fees.
Donald Trump’s latest venture towards the memecoin space stands as a bold attempt to combine his personal brand with the growing popularity of crypto.
The $TRUMP Launch has done much to shake up the crypto ecosystem.
It has captured the attention of industry “degens” and critics, with many offering ambitious plans for expansion.
Supporters have branded this move as the unique blend of spectacle and substance that has defined Trump’s career from the start.
Ultimately as the world watches, the future of $TRUMP will depend fully on its ability to maintain this ongoing momentum.
What will the next four years of a Trump presidency bring for crypto next?
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