Meme coins like $TRUMP and $MELANIA are highly speculative, with limited utility and significant risks for traders.
Melania Trump is following in the footsteps of her husband, President-elect Donald Trump, in launching her own meme coin.
“The Official Melania Meme is live!” the incoming first lady posted on social media. “You can buy $MELANIA now.”
“Melania memes are digital collectibles intended to function as an expression of support for and engagement with the values embodied by the symbol MELANIA,” the website read.
According to FOX Business, a “meme coin,” is a highly speculative kind of cryptocurrency that has no inherent utility and is often created based on a joke or parody, like $PEPE, a meme of a picture of a cartoon frog that has a market cap of over $7 billion.
RELATED: Trump launches meme coin ahead of inauguration
Trump has launched a new meme coin called $TRUMP. He made the announcement in a post on Truth Social post late Friday, describing the cryptocurrency as a celebration of “WINNING” the presidential election.
Analysts say it has the potential to make a lot of money for Trump and his family, but some ethics experts say it’s another effort to cash in on the nation’s highest office.
The new Trump-backed meme coin is a cryptocurrency token with an image of Trump following his assassination attempt.
It was developed by Solana, a cryptocurrency and blockchain company, with a limited supply of 200 million $TRUMP coins at initial launch. The supply will expand to 1 billion coins over the next three years, the coin’s website states.
The remaining tokens that haven’t been put up for sale yet are owned by the Trump Organization affiliate CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, a company formed in Delaware on Jan. 7, state filings show. Forbes reports that both companies will receive an undisclosed amount of revenue from the coin trade.
By the numbers:
The price of $TRUMP increased by more than 300% to just below $29 as of 10:15 a.m. ET Saturday. It reached a market cap of $5.81 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data obtained by Forbes.
There’s a disclaimer on the $TRUMP website stating that the token is “not intended to be, or the subject of” an investment opportunity nor a security of any type, and is “not political and has nothing to do with” any political activity or government agency.
Although all cryptocurrency carries risk, meme coins can be especially risky for traders, an expert told CNBC.
“Meme coins are among the riskiest of cryptocurrencies because they seem to emerge from nowhere and information about them can be sparse,” he says. “They’re expected to soar and plummet as the public sentiment shifts this way and that. Meme coins may capture the public’s fancy today and be gone tomorrow.”
The other side:
Ethics attorneys called the latest venture by Trump and his family a blatant effort to profiteer from the presidency.
“It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office” Adav Noti, executive director of Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit ethics group, told The New York Times. “It is beyond unprecedented.”
The backstory:
The price of bitcoin topped $100,000 again early Friday as a pumped up cryptocurrency industry expects early action by Trump when he’s sworn in as president next week.
RELATED: Crypto markets surge after Trump’s election victory
Once a skeptic who said a few years ago that bitcoin ” seems like a scam,” Trump has embraced digital currencies with a convert’s zeal. He vowed on the campaign trail to take steps early in his presidency to make the U.S. into the “crypto capital” of the world.
His promises including creating a U.S. crypto stockpile, enacting industry-friendly regulation and event appointing a crypto “czar” for his administration.
“You’re going to be very happy with me,” Trump told crypto-enthusiasts at a bitcoin conference last summer.
By the numbers:
According to Forbes, bitcoin hit several new record highs after Trump’s win, surpassing $100,000 within a month of Election Day. Roughly $1.8 trillion was added to the global crypto market’s aggregate market value in 2024, and $1 trillion of that was since Election Day, according to CoinGecko via Forbes.
The information in this story comes from a variety of sources, including social media posts by Donald and Melania Trump, statements and disclaimers on the official websites for the $TRUMP and $MELANIA coins, cryptocurrency market data from CoinMarketCap and Forbes, commentary by ethics experts like Adav Noti in The New York Times, an expert’s analysis shared with CNBC, and general background information on meme coins from FOX Business. Additional context was provided by Trump’s statements at a Bitcoin conference and details about his administration’s crypto-related promises.