President-elect Donald Trump launched his cryptocurrency Friday, triggering a buying fever that would have pushed its market capitalization to several billion dollars.
In a post on his Truth Social and
“My NEW official Trump meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” he wrote.
Meme coins have no economic or transactional value and are often considered a means of speculative trading.
“This Trump Meme celebrates a leader who doesn’t back down, no matter the odds,” said the corner official website said.
In the hours following the nightly launch, the crypto community asked questions about the legitimacy of the $TRUMP coin and its real connection to the president-elect, with some fearing a scam.
But the fact that the announcements were made on Trump’s official social media channels seemed to reassure the market, as did the fact that Trump had in the past used one of the companies behind the project, CIC Digital LLC, to sell non-fungible tokens (NFT). ).
As of mid-morning Saturday, $TRUMP’s market cap stood at nearly $6 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com.
Neither Trump nor the company managing the launch, Fight Fight Fight LLC, provided details on what he earned from the initial batch of meme coins released.
The coin’s official website said 200 million meme coins had been issued, with Fight Fight Fight claiming another 800 million would be added over the next three years.
Mark Humphrey / AP
Once a cryptocurrency skeptic, the president-elect is now a convert and has become a champion of the concept.
Before this new announcement, Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric launched their own crypto business – World Liberty Financial – and other members of the new administration have already disclosed their investments and support for cryptocurrencies.
Last summer, Trump spoke at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, where he pledged to make America “the crypto capital of the planet” once he returned to the White House.
The meme piece is Trump’s latest merchandise campaign, which recently included a line of perfumes, colognes, watches and “President Donald J. Trump First Edition” silver coins sold for $100 each celebrating his election victory. He used a photo of himself seated next to first lady Dr. Jill Biden at the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral to promote the Cologne line.