A day earlier than formally turning into the forty seventh President of the United States, Donald Trump is making waves within the cryptocurrency panorama – not for his upcoming inauguration on January 20 – however for launching a controversial meme coin he named after himself.
Launched on January 17, the crypto token dubbed because the TRUMP meme coin has sparked a substantial quantity of dialogue and is at present going through a backlash for what critics stated was a questionable enterprise for the incoming President.
Critics Condemn TRUMP Meme Coin Launch
While everyone seems to be anticipating Trump’s incoming takeover of the White House, the US President-elect shocked the cryptocurrency group by launching his personal meme coin on the Solana blockchain. This transfer has now sparked a firestorm of criticism which questioned whether it is moral for an American president to launch his meme coin.
Popular YouTuber Stephen Findeisen, also called Coffeezilla, believes that the launching, which is simply days earlier than Trump’s inauguration is off-timing, contemplating Trump will likely be appointing the brand new Chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
> dropping TRUMP memecoin 2 days earlier than turning into president is nasty work
> new SEC/DOJ ensures no prosecution
> 80% of tokens vest to insiders DURING the presidency
> most ppl shedding cash will likely be MAGA who aren’t crypto native
> *ought to* be a criminal offense however crime is authorized now ig?— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) January 18, 2025
“Dropping TRUMP memecoin 2 days before becoming president is nasty work. New SEC/DOJ guarantees no prosecution,” Findeisen stated in his X submit.
Other critics questioned Trump’s new enterprise which of their opinion considerably blurred the boundaries of presidency and enterprise.
Even Trump’s former aide, Anthony Scaramucci slammed the brand new meme coin describing it as a type of “corruption”, arguing that the Trump token might adversely have an effect on the broader digital asset market.
The Trump meme coin stuff is dangerous for the trade. Don’t delude your self. It’s Idi Amin stage corruption.
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) January 18, 2025
Profiteering Move?
Campaign Legal Center govt director Adav Noti accused Trump of utilizing the presidency for his private acquire, saying the TRUMP meme coin may very well be thought-about a profiteering effort.
According to stories, about 80% of the tokens will likely be distributed to people inside the circle of the incoming president.
“It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office. It is beyond unprecedented,” Noti instructed the New York Times.
The new meme coin additionally doesn’t sit properly with some personalities within the cryptocurrency trade seeing it as a grimy tactic.
“Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it,” former Coinbase govt Nick Tomaino stated in a submit.
TRUMP Coin Soars
Analysts stated that the brand new Trump-based token wanted solely quarter-hour to achieve a market capitalization of $400 million, saying the meme coin additionally pushed Solana’s native token SOL to an all-time excessive of $267.
Ok yeah the brand new Trump memecoin web site is deployed nearly identically to his earlier NFT web site.
Same cloudflare setup, similar deployment with Heroku, similar SSL certificates issuer.
Very related HTML construction as earlier than. pic.twitter.com/u1zLD7Vcv7
— cygaar (@0xCygaar) January 18, 2025
Despite the backlash, knowledge additionally confirmed that the brand new meme coin recorded over 12,000% adoption because it was launched.
Market observers stated that the coin’s worth nearly hit $35 earlier than settling at about $29, including that a number of crypto merchants recorded positive aspects with one investor reportedly making $50,000 to $1.1 million inside a couple of hours.
However, it’s too early to inform what the way forward for the token will likely be contemplating solely 20% of the 1 billion TRUMP cash are in circulation. The remaining 80% of the tokens will likely be launched within the subsequent three years.
Featured picture from The Nation, chart from TradingView
