Three days before its presidential inauguration, Donald Trump launched a meme coinA type of cryptocurrency whose value is supported by social media and internet culture, rather than any kind of functionality or intrinsic value.
The medal, officially called $ Trumpis briefly mounted in the first 15 cryptocurrencies per market capitalization and attracted More than half a million buyers.
Referring to the play during a press conference on January 21, a The journalist asked Trump If he intended to continue selling products that took advantage of him personally while being president.
“You have earned a lot of money (on $ Trump), sir,” he told Trump, who seemed unconscious of his meteoric increase in value.
“How much?” Trump asked.
“Several billion dollars, it seems that, in the past two days.”
Donald Trump is questioned about the successful launch of his new meme piece.
During the following week, various publications said that the play of meme had “had”Balloon net value (Trump)“Make him a”Crypto billionaire. “”
If it is true that Trump largely benefits from the same and its Other Crypto companiesTrump’s claims itself by earning billions are exaggerated.
Funny money or Filch?
Coins became popular in 2013 with the launch of MastiffThat its creators wanted as a joke, usurping the many other apparently useless cryptocurrencies that appeared at the time. It was never supposed to be a popular investment. The creators even tried to make it as unwanted as possible to ensure that not.
Twelve years later, he remains in the Top 10 cryptocurrencies And inspired thousands of other coins to be launched.
In 2025, it is cheaper and easier than ever to launch and exchange these tokens.
For example, just create a new part on the website Pump is a name, a ticker symbol, a description, an image and the equivalent of around US $ 5 of cryptocurrency.
StingyThe exchange of crypto to which the Trump’s same corner website transports interested buyers, allows users to register as little as 10 minutes. They are then able to buy the Trump room and a slew of other coins.
The vast majority of coins launched are doubtful. Many are pure and simple scams. For example, in August, McDonald’s Instagram account was hacked to announce a Same corner named $ grimace In a nod to the fast food chain mascot. After artificially inflating the price of the medal, the creators collected nearly $ 700,000.
There are countless other scam parts that fly under the radar using the same dynamic: generate a media threw, pump the price and unload investors.
Look under the hood
So, how much could he benefit from Trump and his associates from his new part of memes and, more broadly, from the attitude “free for everything” than his administration adopts towards the cryptographic industry?
I study The gray area between participation and exploitation in cryptographic markets, and I dug more deeply in the same Trump room.
A way to assess whether a money supply is a scam is to look at it “tokenomics“- In other words, the predetermined number of units of its supply, how this diet is distributed and how much of its creator can keep. The more the percentage of the offer allocated to the creators, the more they can sell for profit.
As a media studies scholarship holder Lana Swartz underlines that the creative tokens were originally planned For the developers to finance the crowdfund from their startups. But with the coins, which do not generally claim to build anything, they exist to enrich their creators and, potentially, finance the continuous marketing of the medal.
Unlike Dogecoin, who took a “fair launch“Approach – which means that its creators have not allocated part of the initial parts for themselves before allowing others to exchange it – the majority of Trump tokens are allocated to its creators to a distribution calendar of three years.
In fact, 80% of the parts offer will be distributed to the creators of the medal in three years. In other words, the tokenomic of the same Trump’s play is installed so that its creators can slowly sell their big offer without radically manipulating its price. Rather than quickly pulling the carpet under investor’s feet, they can do it slowly.
None of this is hidden information – the tokenomic of the same Trump play is presented in a good place On the Piece website.
In particular, none of the people behind the room will start to receive games of the offer until March. The amount of profits they can collect will be based on future prices. When writing these lines, the same Trump’s play was down approximately 60% of its peak.
Who are these creators anyway? The different layers of limited liability companies behind the project, Registered in small characters on the website of the same $ Trumpobscure that individuals benefit.
Presume Trump is one of these creatorsThe president has technically not the allocation of the offer to withdraw the withdrawal – not before March, at least.
So no, Trump did not make billions of people from the medal. But it is still potentially sucked in millions of dollars in involuntary investors. To judge by the Spike in Crypto Exchange Downloads During the weekend of launching Trump Coin, he attracted many new and probable novice speculators.
Parts like this, which can be devalued considerably in a few hours, can be painful introductions in the world of investment.
It is not the first time either that Trump has tried to kill on the crypto. He has already brought millions of sales of Five non -supplies of tokens – which are mainly digital negotiation cards – since 2022.
Have fun!
The latest words in Trump’s play announcement On his social media platform Social truth Summarize the attitude of his administration towards the cryptography industry over the next four years: “Have fun!”
On January 23, Trump signed a executive decree containing a multitude of decrees aimed at making the United States “Crypto capital of the world. “”
He hit the venture capital David Sacks to preside over the group responsible for reworking prohibitive regulations around the cryptography industry. Sacks has invested in Crypto -based companies and a defeated of its cryptocurrency personal investments on His podcast.
In a recent Fox Commercial InterviewSacks were asked if he thought that Trump’s meme medal was a conflict of interest. He said no, suggesting that the pieces should be considered as “collectibles” similar to “a baseball card or a stamp”.
Notably, The $ Trump website Also reference to tokens as “cards” and “memes” rather than pieces. This could be an attempt at legal contradiction: he supervises them as simple fun tokens rather than serious investment vehicles with expectations of profit.
Nevertheless, several members of the Congress have already called for a probe In the room even Trump.
No matter how you define $ Trump, one thing remains clear: the medal structure is set up to siphon money from retail for at least the next three years. Of course, ordinary speculators can always benefit from it, as long as its value remains sustained. It is essentially a bet.
With Trump Start accumulating a stock of various cryptocurrencies through his other business, World Liberty FinancialIt could also benefit enormously from a more loose regulatory environment.
Fun indeed.
“> Maximilian Brichta is a doctoral student in communication University of South California
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