Mike Novogratz and Brad Garlinghouse lent MoonPay $160 million to provide liquidity for the TRUMP meme coin over the weekend following its launch. This was disclosed by the payment service’s president, Keith Grossman.
Ripple Brad Garlinghouse and Mike Novogratz lent Moonpay $160M to launch the $TRUMP Token ? pic.twitter.com/jaA5rl9QGz
— ????XRP (@BankXRP) February 12, 2025
The excitement surrounding the launch of the “presidential token” significantly increased the load on MoonPay during the bank holiday weekend of January 18–20. During this period, the service had no access to BlackRock accounts where funds were held.
According to preliminary estimates by the company’s executives, at least $100 million in USDC was needed to meet demand. The funds had to be secured within 12 hours—by Saturday evening.
The company turned to Galaxy Digital’s head, Mike Novogratz, for a loan.
“The entire conversation took two minutes. Within five minutes, a call came from the Galaxy team,” Grossman recounted.
Later, there were difficulties in confirming the status of assets in BlackRock accounts—a necessary step for processing the loan. On the holiday, firm employees were not responding to calls.
According to MoonPay’s president, the company’s founder, Ivan Soto-Wright, “pledged his entire fortune” to ensure the deal went through. Grossman added that even personal bitcoins had to be sold to maintain reserves.
On Sunday, it became clear that demand for TRUMP continued to grow, and the token of the president’s wife MELANIA was also launched, necessitating an additional $60 million for the service. This time, they turned to Ripple’s founder, Brad Garlinghouse.
He agreed to assist, but there was no time to process documents as before. According to Grossman, the Galaxy team proposed a solution: Ripple would send them the funds, and they would provide MoonPay with an additional $60 million.
The funds arrived on time, allowing the company to wait for service resumption. On Monday, funds began arriving from European accounts, and on Tuesday, from American ones. As of January 21, MoonPay had returned the $160 million.
The company’s president expressed his gratitude to Novogratz, Garlinghouse, and their teams for their assistance:
“If Mike or Brad ever need a kidney, I should be the first person they call. I’d give both.”
Grossman also noted that following the launch of the presidential family’s meme coins, MoonPay’s user base increased by 750,000.
Experts estimate that within 19 days, the accumulated losses from investments in the U.S. president’s meme coin reached $2 billion.