Source: TIME
Compiled and organized by: BitpushNews
When Donald Trump won the presidential election in November, many crypto enthusiasts cheered, as he promised to prioritize deregulation and legitimize crypto businesses.
In the days before his inauguration, industry heavyweights gathered in Washington for a "crypto ball" to celebrate their status as new members of the Washington establishment.
However, during the event, Trump made a move that shocked almost everyone - he announced a new Token called TRUMP, a "meme coin" widely seen as having no intrinsic value, with its price entirely dependent on buying and selling activity in the market.
Trump's supporters and some opportunistic day traders created billions of dollars in sales volume through trading this Token, driven by loyalty, hype, and the chance for quick profits. All this trading allowed the Token's creators - an affiliate of the Trump Organization - to realize billions of dollars in paper gains. On the second day of the Token's release, Melania Trump announced her own meme coin, whose price also experienced a frenetic rise and fall. By Wednesday, TRUMP had become the 25th largest Crypto by market cap, trading at around $43, well below its previous high of $75.
Trump's meme Tokens have brought a lot of attention to the Crypto industry and attracted many new entrants.
For some, these Tokens symbolize Trump's commitment to Crypto and his willingness to drive the industry forward. But more Crypto insiders express distaste, seeing the Tokens as a cash grab, a way for Trump to directly profit from his supporters. Trump's team controls at least 80% of the Token supply, giving them enormous influence over the price. While they are currently barred from selling these holdings, once they start offloading, it could cause a market collapse, devastating ordinary users.
Crypto industry insiders worry these Tokens may further erode public trust in an industry already rife with scams and malicious behavior.
"The Crypto industry has let someone take power, and his first act is to emphasize and exploit the money-making opportunities in this space," said Crypto researcher and writer Angela Walch, "which is just embarrassing."
Trump has downplayed his role in launching the Token, saying in a January 21 press conference: "Other than I launched it, I know nothing about it." The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House press secretary also declined to comment.
However, elected officials and legal experts have raised ethical and geopolitical concerns. They worry the Tokens could become tools for bribery and conflicts of interest. "These Tokens provide Trump a way to economically benefit from foreign adversaries and may lead him to prioritize his personal interests over those of the American people," said Puja Ohlhaver, a lawyer at Harvard's Democratic Innovations Lab.
What are meme Tokens?
TRUMP and MELANIA are both examples of meme Tokens. These Crypto assets are essentially "created out of thin air" by entrepreneurs writing blockchain code. Their value is entirely dependent on people's belief in them and willingness to buy them. To stoke market enthusiasm, the teams behind these Tokens often leverage popular internet memes in their marketing. The logic is that if memes can drive culture, creativity, and even ideology on social media, why can't they also become financially valuable?
Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are two prime examples, especially Dogecoin, as Elon Musk's tweets have repeatedly caused its price to spike. However, meme Tokens lack intrinsic value, making them highly volatile and speculative. This is part of the appeal for some: if investors buy in at the right time, they can make huge profits. But if they buy in at the market top, they can quickly lose everything. Meme Tokens have also been used in some alleged scams, where investors have lost substantial sums.
Trump's Relationship with Meme Culture
Trump's supporters have often used memes as a marketing tool. During his presidential campaigns, a content creation team extensively posted pro-Trump memes on social media. Last summer, some unofficial Trump meme Tokens, like Pepe (TRUMP) and Maga People Token (PEOPLE), also experienced price fluctuations, with some investors even seeing them as symbols of Trump's electoral prospects.
Trump has also made money through Crypto. He began selling NFT trading cards in 2022, earning millions according to financial disclosures. In September 2023, he launched an as-yet-unlaunched Crypto platform called World Liberty Financial. By 2025, meme Tokens may have become one of the fastest ways for emerging Crypto entrepreneurs to make money.
The TRUMP Token Frenzy
On January 18, just two days before the inauguration, Trump launched his Token through a Trump Organization affiliate, CIC Digital LLC. This move caught the entire industry by surprise. It was happening during the "crypto ball" event, which had invited guests like Snoop Dogg and Congressman Mike Johnson. Crypto entrepreneur Nick O'Neill posted a video saying almost no one at the event knew the Token existed.
The next day, the market went into a frenzy trading the Token, triggering a chain reaction. The blockchain platform supporting the Token, Solana, and the Crypto exchange Coinbase both experienced trading delays of up to several hours. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted: "We didn't anticipate this level of trading activity."
In just one day, the team controlling the Token (led by CIC Digital) had paper gains of around $51 billion. However, this figure is not realistic, as if they tried to convert the Tokens to dollars, the price would plummet rapidly. Later that same day, Melania Trump released her own meme Token, MELANIA, which actually shaved billions off TRUMP's market cap, as traders seemed to sell TRUMP to buy the new Token. Within an hour of MELANIA's launch, TRUMP's price fell from over $70 to around $45. A fake Token unrelated to Trump's son, BARRON, also briefly reached a $460 million market cap before crashing 95%.
The Industry's "Soul-Searching"
Some of Trump's Crypto supporters have accused him of predatory behavior with the meme Tokens. Crypto advocates for decentralization, yet the president's team controls at least 80% of the TRUMP supply. Another blockchain analytics firm, Bubblemaps, found 89% of the MELANIA Token supply concentrated in a single crypto wallet. Coinbase executive Conor Gregor wrote on Saturday that the Trump team had made $58 million just in trading fees.
"Trump's credibility is completely destroyed," wrote investment manager Michael A. Gayed. Trump's former White House communications director and Crypto advocate Anthony Scaramucci said, "No one is going to think this is good for society."
Angela Walch summarized: "The entire industry is now undergoing a profound rethinking. We have gained power, but is this in line with our original goals?"
Concerns about Morality and National Security
Critics outside the crypto industry have also raised moral concerns. Trump is now directly involved in the industry he is responsible for regulating. (Control companies are Trump's business affiliates, and they wrote that Trump Tokens "are not investments or securities, but a form of 'expressive support'.") Critics argue that the president's crypto windfalls give him no incentive to crack down on the industry, which could cause his token's value to plummet by billions of dollars. Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California who is one of Congress's most important crypto supporters, wrote on X: "The law must prohibit elected officials from holding meme coins."
Some critics are concerned that these tokens pose a national security threat, as they allow foreign spies to buy large amounts of tokens as leverage over Trump's policy decisions. These spies could buy tokens to win Trump's support - or threaten to sell them, which could cause the token's price to plummet. Ohlhaver of Allen Lab says they can also use crypto to hide their identities from everyone in the world except Trump.
The Founding Fathers tried to prevent such conflicts of interest through the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which prohibits the president from profiting from his office. (At the time, gift-giving was a common form of corruption among European rulers and diplomats.) Some argue that Trump issued the tokens before taking office, meaning he was acting as a private citizen. Crypto journalist Zack Guzmán wrote on X: "It's less complicated for them if these tokens were issued before Trump officially became president." "If not, it would be much easier to claim that Trump profited from his presidency and violated the Emoluments Clause."
But Ohlhaver believes that as long as Trump holds token shares, there is a major conflict of interest. "He still owns the tokens, and if foreign adversaries hype them up, the value of those tokens will increase," she said.
Ohlhaver also said that Trump's meme coins fundamentally threaten the public's understanding of money. "With the rise of social media and global social networks, it has become very easy to create and legitimize a new form of currency using your status and influence," she said. "It is important for us to maintain our public common goods, to ensure that they serve our common interests, not the narrow interests of the elite who will reap huge benefits at the expense of everyone else."
