One last stroke of madness before his inauguration. During the night from Friday to Saturday, Donald Trump, who took the reins of the United States for a second time on Monday, January 20, launched 200 million tokens of a cryptocurrency bearing his image: “$Trump”. The token experienced an immediate surge and soared to 35 billion in a few hours. Inspired by the success, his wife Melania Trump also launched her own “meme coin”, a small name given to cryptos which take the avatar of a well-known figure. Welcome to “$Melania”.
But the success story seems to be coming to an end. After reaching Everest in a few hours, “$Trump” experienced a dizzying fall of 40% in half an hour on Monday night. The value was at 72 euros on Sunday at noon, it was at 40 on Monday evening.
The fame of Donald Trump, accelerator of frenzy
An activity as frenetic as it is unpredictable which is not surprising, according to Claire Balva, vice-president of the neobank Deblock and co-founder of Blockchain Partner, a crypto consulting firm. “It's a classic phenomenon of excitement at the start then sudden decline, when the first holders start to sell while it's at its highest. » The phenomenon is just exacerbated “by the fact that it bears the likeness of Donald Trump, who has a fanbase consistent, capable of massively buying this token without behind market analysis. »
However, in the world of finance, the more numerous the mass, the more vivid the effects: “The more people buy, the faster the price rises, the faster it rises, the more the first buyers resell, and the more it increases. collapses. »
“Parody gadgets” far from reaching consensus
“Meme coins” like $Trump or $Melania are nothing new in themselves. Elon Musk, aka the richest man in the world and the new right-hand man of the American president, has extensively promoted “Dogecoin” in 2024, the famous cryptocurrency bearing the image of a Shiba. In 2020, the Paris Saint-Germain football club also launched its own crypto, with the commissioning of 20 million “$PSG” tokens, at 2 euros each. “It’s in the spirit of the times for big fanbases to have their ''same corner''. These are somewhat gimmicky tools for claiming belonging,” continues Antoine Andreani, senior financial markets analyst at XTB.
As you will have understood from the comments of our experts, “meme coins” are not unanimously accepted, even in the community of crypto-maniacs. “These are currencies sometimes seen as caricatures and which tarnish the image of cryptos as a whole,” explains Claire Balva. “We can never know what the price of these “meme coins” will be like in the long term. Their value is based on an emotion at a given moment, which makes them extremely speculative.”
-“More casino than finance”
Pierre Noizat, founder of Paymium, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, takes action: “There is no scarcity in a currency if there is no energy that creates it,” he continues. The famous Bitcoin, much more stable, thus depends on mining, namely the work of users who help validate and secure blockchain transactions. If additional euro circulates, it comes from borrowing from banks. The “same corner” does not rely on any energy.
Experts therefore strongly urge caution on these currencies: “You must not touch them, even if it is launched by the most powerful man in the world,” warns Pierre Noizat, not shy of a good word. “I call them 'shit coins'. Of course, it is possible to invest in it, make a x10 and sell it at the right time, but it looks more like casino at this level than finance. »
The previous “Hawk Tuah Girl”
In 2024, influencer Haliey Welch, known under the pseudonym Hawk Tuah Girl and with some 2.6 million followers on Instagram, launched her own cryptocurrency “$HAWK”. The value of the “meme coin” soared to $490 million at launch, but just as quickly plummeted to $60 million. In a few hours, the “$HAWK” had lost 90% of its value. To the point that the influencer and her troupe are accused of having done “pump-and-dump” (inflate and dump). Understand: having artificially inflated the value of their currency before reselling their shares to take the jackpot, leading to a crash.
The Donald Trump version of digital money is not there yet. And the American president risks nothing anyway, being protected by presidential immunity. The final word for Antoine Andreani: “In economics there is always a question: is there more money than idiots, or more idiots than money? Apparently we live in an era with a lot of idiots. »
