Finally, the new President of the United States, Trump, was officially sworn in.
In the past few weeks, Trump, who has not yet taken office, has become one of the focuses of the world's news media: threatening to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal by force, threatening to annex Canada, playing a perfect "block-and-rescue" double act with TikTok, and what is even more surprising is that on the eve of taking office, the new US president and his wife successively issued cryptocurrency in their own names.
Before the last news focus has passed, Trump has already launched the next sensational focus. As Steve Bannon, his adviser during his first presidential term, said, as long as you are covered in flaws, others (the news media) will not be able to catch your flaws. (Bannon’s original words are: The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.)
As early as the 2024 election, Trump frequently expressed his attitude towards the cryptocurrency field and "showed goodwill" to the currency circle, raising the expectations of virtual cryptocurrency investors for him.
For example, at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in July 2024, Trump made a series of eye-catching promises:
Let the United States become the first country to list Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset, allowing the federal government to retain the approximately 210,000 Bitcoins currently held; fire the current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who is considered hostile to the cryptocurrency industry; establish a Presidential Advisory Committee on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency, which will formulate U.S. cryptocurrency policy; encourage power plants to strengthen power supply for Bitcoin mining, and explore synergies between the encryption industry and the electric vehicle industry; etc.
A month later, on August 29, 2024, he said in a video: "This afternoon, I will announce my plan to ensure that the United States becomes the global capital of cryptocurrency."
At 21:00 local time on January 17, 2025, Trump announced on social media that he would release his own cryptocurrency $TRUMP (Trump Meme) on the Solana blockchain. According to public information, the number of $TRUMP tokens currently issued is 200 million, and an additional 800 million are planned to be issued in the next three years; 80% of the supply of this token is held by an entity called "Fight Fight Fight" jointly owned by Trump's company CIC Digital and CIC.
It is said that when Trump issued the currency this time, he was holding a reception party for cryptocurrency investors. With the help of this "right time and right place", the price of Trump's meme currency quickly skyrocketed dozens of times, causing his paper wealth to suddenly rise to the top of the world's richest list. Immediately afterwards, Trump’s wife Melania also issued her own official cryptocurrency $MELANIA, and there was even news that his youngest son also issued his own cryptocurrency.
According to bitcion.com News on the 20th, on January 20th, the value of Melania’s meme currency increased by nearly 40% in 24 hours. Data from Coingecko shows that the meme coin peaked at more than $13 before falling to about $10.60; trading volume surged from $1.33 billion on the 19th to $6.6 billion on the 20th. With a market capitalization of $1.54 billion, it ranks among the top 100 crypto assets.
In comparison, the Trump meme coin $TRUMP fell by more than 17% before his inauguration. However, its trading volume exceeded $47 billion, making it one of the most traded crypto assets on the 20th. On the same day, Trump Meme Coin broke into the top 20 crypto assets with a market capitalization of $11.1 billion.
The market capitalization and trading volume of Trump Meme Coin and Melania Meme Coin as of this writing. Digital currency trading platform Coinmarketcap
Although the author has analyzed Trump's possible preferential policies for the cryptocurrency industry, the act of a family personally issuing cryptocurrency is indeed beyond our poor imagination.
In particular, Trump had not officially taken office as president at the time of the issuance, and the domestic regulations on civil servants in the United States are likely not to apply to him; and other laws and regulations are not clear about the issuance of cryptocurrency by politicians who do not hold official positions. There is a high probability that Trump will successfully exploit the loopholes this time. Of course, Trump will basically control the legislative process in the United States in the next four years, and the share of cryptocurrency he controls (80%) can reportedly be unfrozen and sold in batches within three years. This timing design is probably not a coincidence.
So, what do Americans think of Trump issuing a personal cryptocurrency?
His opponents are naturally angry. On reddit forums on the left side of the political spectrum, comments such as "corruption", "fraud" and "cutting leeks" are everywhere. On the "True Social" social media platform where Trump supporters gather, in the comments under relevant posts, some supporters wanted to buy cryptocurrencies but were unable to do so due to various reasons. Some people lost money on Trump's social media company stocks and hoped that he could shift some of his attention to the stock prices of his social media companies.
On other Internet platforms (including the Chinese Internet), it is easy to search for various posts and screenshots about people who bought Trump’s personal cryptocurrency as soon as the market opened and became rich instantly. Coupled with the algorithm push mechanism of today’s platforms, it is easy for people to have a kind of anxiety that “the whole world has become rich, and I am the only one left behind.” A friend of the author also wanted to try to buy a few Trump meme coins over the weekend out of the mentality of being an internet celebrity. However, perhaps due to technical reasons, he was unable to complete the transaction. He could only miss out on the legendary overnight wealth.
But if we put aside speculative gossip such as the price fluctuations of Trump’s personal cryptocurrency, the Trump family’s issuance of cryptocurrency has indeed given cryptocurrency investors a clear signal of encouragement: In return for their election votes, many investors hope that Trump will give a green light to cryptocurrency in terms of U.S. laws and regulations soon after taking office, such as relaxing legal and regulatory restrictions on financial institutions’ purchase and holding of cryptocurrency, etc., to create greater investment market demand for cryptocurrency.
To some extent, the Trump phenomenon is a concrete manifestation of the confrontation between "new money" and "old money" in the United States. Just as the author once wrote an article analyzing U.S. government fiscal spending and Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the "new money" in the United States will not only challenge the market share of traditional military industry "old money" in defense spending, but the cryptocurrency industry and financial technology companies will also challenge the control of U.S. dollar assets by traditional large banks and investment banks.
This battle between “new money” and “old money” will not be decided just because Trump is elected. On the contrary, everyone's brutal competition for "cake distribution" has just begun with Trump taking office. Trump’s issuance of a personal cryptocurrency was the first time that he took a big piece of the cake and put it into his own bowl. I am afraid it also set a clear “example” for many future American politicians and officials within his government.
