A day earlier than formally turning into the forty seventh President of the USA, Donald Trump is making waves within the cryptocurrency panorama – not for his upcoming inauguration on January 20 – however for launching a controversial meme coin he named after himself.
Launched on January 17, the crypto token dubbed because the TRUMP meme coin has sparked a substantial quantity of debate and is at the moment dealing with a backlash for what critics mentioned was a questionable enterprise for the incoming President.
Critics Condemn TRUMP Meme Coin Launch
Whereas everyone seems to be anticipating Trump’s incoming takeover of the White Home, the US President-elect shocked the cryptocurrency neighborhood by launching his personal meme coin on the Solana blockchain. This transfer has now sparked a firestorm of criticism which questioned whether it is moral for an American president to launch his meme coin.
In style YouTuber Stephen Findeisen, also referred to as Coffeezilla, believes that the launching, which is barely days earlier than Trump’s inauguration is off-timing, contemplating Trump will probably be appointing the brand new Chair of the US Securities and Change Fee (SEC).
> dropping TRUMP memecoin 2 days earlier than turning into president is nasty work
> new SEC/DOJ ensures no prosecution
> 80% of tokens vest to insiders DURING the presidency
> most ppl dropping cash will probably be MAGA who aren’t crypto native
> *ought to* be a criminal offense however crime is authorized now ig?— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) January 18, 2025
“Dropping TRUMP memecoin 2 days earlier than turning into president is nasty work. New SEC/DOJ ensures no prosecution,” Findeisen mentioned in his X publish.
Different critics questioned Trump’s new enterprise which of their opinion considerably blurred the boundaries of presidency and enterprise.
Even Trump’s former aide, Anthony Scaramucci slammed the brand new meme coin describing it as a type of “corruption”, arguing that the Trump token might adversely have an effect on the broader digital asset market.
The Trump meme coin stuff is dangerous for the business. Don’t delude your self. It’s Idi Amin stage corruption.
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) January 18, 2025
Profiteering Transfer?
Marketing campaign Authorized Heart government director Adav Noti accused Trump of utilizing the presidency for his private achieve, saying the TRUMP meme coin may very well be thought of a profiteering effort.
In response to reviews, about 80% of the tokens will probably be distributed to people inside the circle of the incoming president.
“It’s actually cashing in on the presidency — making a monetary instrument so individuals can switch cash to the president’s household in connection along with his workplace. It’s past unprecedented,” Noti instructed the New York Occasions.
The brand new meme coin additionally doesn’t sit nicely with some personalities within the cryptocurrency business seeing it as a grimy tactic.
“Trump proudly owning 80 % and timing launch hours earlier than inauguration is predatory and plenty of will seemingly get damage by it,” former Coinbase government Nick Tomaino mentioned in a publish.
TRUMP Coin Soars
Analysts mentioned that the brand new Trump-based token wanted solely quarter-hour to achieve a market capitalization of $400 million, saying the meme coin additionally pushed Solana’s native token SOL to an all-time excessive of $267.
Okay yeah the brand new Trump memecoin web site is deployed virtually identically to his earlier NFT web site.
Identical cloudflare setup, identical deployment with Heroku, identical SSL certificates issuer.
Very comparable HTML construction as earlier than. pic.twitter.com/u1zLD7Vcv7
— cygaar (@0xCygaar) January 18, 2025
Regardless of the backlash, information additionally confirmed that the brand new meme coin recorded over 12,000% adoption because it was launched.
Market observers mentioned that the coin’s worth virtually hit $35 earlier than settling at about $29, including that a number of crypto merchants recorded features with one investor reportedly making $50,000 to $1.1 million inside just a few hours.
Nonetheless, it’s too early to inform what the way forward for the token will probably be contemplating solely 20% of the 1 billion TRUMP cash are in circulation. The remaining 80% of the tokens will probably be launched within the subsequent three years.
Featured picture from The Nation, chart from TradingView