In a surprising Friday night announcement just days before his second presidential inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump revealed an official Solana-based meme coin called $TRUMP. The launch, shared on Trump’s official social media accounts, including X (formerly Twitter) and Truth Social, generated a surge of excitement and skepticism from the crypto community.
"My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW," Trump’s official X account posted, stirring up the meme coin market. The tweet was met with a rush of purchases from "degen" traders, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars in trading volume within hours. On-chain sleuths and security experts immediately began investigating the legitimacy of the coin, searching for any potential red flags, especially given the history of celebrity-backed crypto scams.
Initially, concerns swirled due to the common signs of a pump-and-dump scheme. The project had some similarities to many celebrity meme coin scams that have surfaced in the past year, often involving hijacked social media accounts. However, as time passed and both of Trump’s social media posts remained live, skepticism began to fade. Further investigation showed the project had several indicators of legitimacy, with the Truth Social post preceding the X post, and no immediate "dump" after the initial price surge.
Red flags still remained, including a significant amount of initial funding from Binance and Gate, two major exchanges that do not serve U.S. customers. However, further sleuthing by on-chain analysts revealed that some concerns were unwarranted, particularly as Trump's social media posts remained online for over an hour without being taken down or flagged as fraudulent.
The $TRUMP coin’s official website closely resembles the design of Trump’s previous NFT collections and is credited to CIC Digital, the official licensee behind those NFTs. Blockchain engineer cygaar noted the similarities, stating that the site had been “deployed almost identically to his previous NFT website.” This alignment with past Trump digital projects further convinced some that the meme coin launch was legitimate. As cygaar tweeted, "Either this is the greatest cyber heist of all time, or this is legitimate."
Despite the initial concerns, meme coin traders rushed to buy the coin, pushing its price to $7.31, with a market cap of approximately $7.1 billion. If accurate, this would place $TRUMP among the top 30 cryptocurrencies. However, it’s important to note that only 20% of the total supply of 1 billion coins is currently circulating, with the remaining 80% locked and set to be gradually unlocked over three years. This means the circulating supply is around 200 million tokens, bringing the current market cap closer to $1.5 billion. As of writing, approximately $680 million in trading volume has been recorded.
Trump has been an outspoken advocate for cryptocurrency throughout his political career. In addition to backing the $TRUMP meme coin, he has previously launched NFT collections between 2022 and 2024, further cementing his ties to the crypto space. Furthermore, Trump has expressed support for World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance platform that aims to revolutionize financial services and further crypto adoption.
The launch of $TRUMP has raised questions about the future of meme coins and the potential for increased crypto involvement from public figures, especially as Trump approaches his second term. His backing of $TRUMP is the latest chapter in his involvement with the crypto space, where his pro-crypto stance could help shape the industry’s future.
January 2025, Cryptoniteuae