The “president of cryptocurrencies” takes action. Donald Trump announced, on the night of Friday to Saturday, two days before his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States, the launch of his own digital asset, which bears his name. Enough to provoke a buying fever which caused its overall valuation to rise to several billion dollars in a few hours.
In a message posted on his Truth Social network as well as on , a movement or a viral phenomenon on the Internet.
The “meme coin”, without economic or transactional utility, is often identified as a purely speculative asset. “This Trump Meme celebrates a leader who never backs down, whatever the situation,” explains the project’s official website, referring to the assassination attempt on the Republican candidate last July. While specifying that this asset is “not political” and has “nothing to do” with a political campaign or a government agency.
Fears… then an outbreak
When the launch was announced, the project caused a huge reaction on social networks, with supporters of the president-elect hailing a revolutionary initiative, while skeptics questioning the credibility of the project. During the hours following the Trump launch, the crypto community questioned the legitimacy of this new asset and its link to Donald Trump, with some fearing a scam, as the world of “meme coins” has experienced many.
But the fact that the announcement messages were posted on the president-elect’s official accounts and that one of the companies behind the project, CIC Digital LLC, has already been used by Donald Trump to sell NFTs (Non Fungible Token, digital assets) ended up reassuring the market.
What followed was a surge which caused the value of the digital currency built on the Solana blockchain to rise (whose base cryptocurrency, Solana, broke its record in the process), to the point of bringing the total capitalization of the units in circulation at nearly six billion dollars. The price of the meme coin rose more than 300% to just under $29 late Saturday afternoon, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Donald Trump or the company leading the launch, Fight Fight Fight LLC, have not communicated on the possible proceeds generated by the operation. The official website states that 200 million tokens (units) of this currency have been released to the market, with Fight Fight Fight planning to add another 800 million within three years.
-Theoretical value of $24 billion
The creators of this new digital asset, including Donald Trump, control all the tokens not yet marketed. These have a theoretical value of around $24 billion at current prices.
Initially opposed to cryptocurrencies, Donald Trump made a radical turnaround during his recent presidential campaign, to the point of championing them by defining himself as the future “president of cryptocurrencies”. Donald Trump promised to promote the development of this sector, in particular through reduced regulation.
Last December, boosted by the election of Donald Trump, and his “alliance” with Elon Musk, also very favorable to the sector, bitcoin had crossed the historic threshold of 100,000 dollars. He had already broken a record in the hours following his election in November.
Before the creation of its own digital currency, entrepreneurs associated with Donald Trump had put a cryptocurrency platform online, called World Liberty Financial, in mid-October.
Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency is thus his latest derivative product campaign, after a collection of perfumes, luxury watches and even limited edition sneakers. But most of the revenue generated by the real estate mogul comes from his NFT cards, which reportedly earned him nearly $7.2 million according to Forbes.
