Melania’s meme coin leaves traders pining for Gary Gensler

Melania Trump, wife of the U.S. president-elect, launched her Solana-based meme coin, MELANIA. Parts of the community deemed another token from the political family ill-judged.

The Official Melania Meme is live!

You can buy $MELANIA now.  https://t.co/8FXvlMBhVf

FUAfBo2jgks6gB4Z4LfZkqSZgzNucisEHqnNebaRxM1P pic.twitter.com/t2vYiahRn6

— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) January 19, 2025

Within three hours MELANIA reached a peak of $13.14. The liquidity shift into the new meme coin weighed on several other assets, including TRUMP, which fell from $61 to $38.9.

At the time of writing, MELANIA trades at $12.21 with an FDV above $12bn. The asset ranks 77th on CoinGecko. 

TRUMP’s price partially recovered and is at $59.7.

Amid the frenzy, some trading venues and wallets suffered outages. The Phantom wallet team reported receiving over 8m requests per minute. Jito Labs also faced difficulties, as heavy load disrupted its Block Engine API.

The MELANIA project and tokenomics

The creators position the new meme coin as “digital collectibles,” designed to “express support and engagement with the values represented by the MELANIA symbol.” 

According to the website disclaimer, the asset is “not intended for investment” and is not offered as an “investment contract or any form of securities.” It is also “not political” and unrelated to “any political campaigns, political institutions, or government agencies.” 

Intellectual property associated with the meme coin belongs to MKT World LLC—a company incorporated in 2021 by Melania Trump—which used the same registered address as Trump International Golf Club.

According to the project’s website, the maximum token supply is 1bn. Of that, 45% is allocated to the community, the remaining 55% to the treasury and team. There are 250bn MELANIA in circulation.

Team holdings are subject to vesting. After the first 30 days, 10% will unlock. Then 11 monthly unlocks of 2.25% of the supply are scheduled.

Soon after launch, Bubblemaps specialists noted the actual distribution did not match the stated one—89% of the supply remained in the developers’ wallet. 

JUST IN: ?? The bubble map of $MELANIA does NOT match the distribution on their website pic.twitter.com/Q734sd4ykJ

— Bubblemaps (@bubblemaps) January 19, 2025

At the time of writing, 80% of the token’s supply is held across three wallets.

Specialists argue MELANIA’s developers fall short of the TRUMP meme coin’s team. 

“I assume a different team handled this token than the creators of TRUMP. They had professional market makers, and here, to be honest, it looks like [the level of] college students,” — said Conor Grogan, head of product business operations at Coinbase.

He also noted that a wallet involved in launching MELANIA had previously traded on Pump.fun and did not use a multisig.

An Abstract Chain contributor known as Cygaar pointed to amateurish frontend code on the meme coin’s main site, the lack of Cloudflare protection and the page’s creation date—January 18th 2025—one day before launch.

So this Melania meme site was setup yesterday, has no cloudflare protection, and has some half-assed frontend code.

So yeah, people are definitely grifting here. At least the Trump coin was planned weeks in advance. pic.twitter.com/hCMvwcgWEZ

— cygaar (@0xCygaar) January 19, 2025

“At least, the Trump coin was planned weeks in advance,” the specialist commented.

Community concerns

The launch of another meme coin from the family of the U.S. president-elect drew mixed reactions. 

TRUMP’s debut had already sparked debate about potential corruption schemes and improper enrichment for a politician in such a post. Questions also arose over the initial allocation structure—80% of the supply remained under the creators’ control.

The MELANIA token worried some community members for “diluting” interest in Trump’s token and depressing its price. 

Melania Trump coin launched. This is obviously a huge disappointment as it will dillute the Trump coin as well as the fact that more are likely to come which will just make it into one giant mess.

Everything going to dillute each other, massive PVP between every coin and in the…

— Daan Crypto Trades (@DaanCrypto) January 19, 2025

“Obviously, this is a big disappointment because [MELANIA] ‘dilutes’ the Trump coin; moreover, more coins are likely to appear and everything will turn into a huge mess,” one commenter noted.

Many users accused the presidential family of excessive greed. 

CryptoQuant head Ki Young Ju conveyed his view with a scene from a popular TV series. 

pic.twitter.com/XoYA3EmGt1

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) January 19, 2025

Some recalled the head of the SEC Gary Gensler, whose term ends on Trump’s inauguration day, January 20. 

Gensler is laughing at us

— db (@tier10k) January 19, 2025

“Gensler is laughing at us,” wrote the crypto-news observer known as db.

Another user wryly remarked that he missed “regulation through enforcement”—the SEC approach disliked by the crypto community under the previous leadership.

Former CNBC and Yahoo Finance journalist Zack Guzmán saw a potential U.S. constitutional violation in the launches of TRUMP and MELANIA. 

There is a very important reason why the Trumps are launching $TRUMP and now $MELANIA so fast before the inauguration

And whether you love Trump or hate Trump, the fact is that waiting another day could’ve opened him up to Constitutional violations & impeachment (again) ? pic.twitter.com/fYw2ZsjTK7

— Zack Guzmán (@zGuz) January 19, 2025

“There is a very important reason why the Trumps launched TRUMP and MELANIA so quickly ahead of the inauguration. Whether you love Trump or hate him, the fact is that delaying by one day could have led to constitutional violations and another impeachment,” he stressed.

World Liberty Financial activity picks up

Amid the launches of TRUMP and MELANIA, the World Liberty Financial project, unveiled by the Trump family in September 2024, reported “completing its mission” by selling 20bn WLFI, the project’s governance token.

We’ve completed our mission and sold 20% of our token supply! Due to massive demand and overwhelming interest, we’ve decided to open up an additional block of 5% of token supply. Please be patient while our team works to relaunch the sale. We’ll share updates here as soon as…

— WLFI (@worldlibertyfi) January 20, 2025

Because of heightened demand, a further 5bn tokens were put up for sale. 

According to Dune Analytics, on January 19 the company sold around $160m worth of WLFI. As of January 18, cumulative sales stood at about $91bn. 

According to Tron founder Justin Sun, the Tron DAO organisation invested another $45m in World Liberty Financial. Together with the previous $30m, its contribution amounts to $75m.

In January, journalists learned of Trump’s intention to issue an order elevating cryptocurrencies to a policy priority.