On January 18, US president-elect Donald Trump announced the launch of an “official” TRUMP memecoin on the Solana blockchain. Within 24 hours, the token jumped 220%, with FDV at $62 billion.
At the time of writing, the token trades at $68.8 with a market capitalisation of $13.6 billion. TRUMP has already climbed to 16th among the largest cryptocurrencies, ahead of TON and SHIB.
Daily trading volume has neared $2 billion.
The frenzy around TRUMP comes amid a relatively stagnant broader crypto market. A surge in Solana activity has pushed SOL to fresh record highs—now trading around $286.
Centralised exchanges including Binance, Bybit, HTX, Gate and Bitget have listed the token.
Solana-based DEXs are also posting records. Network-wide daily DEX volume has held around $21 billion for the second day in a row.
TRUMP tokenomics
The initial circulating supply at launch was 200 million TRUMP out of 1 billion total. According to the project’s website, tokens are slated to unlock gradually over three years.
A total of 100 million TRUMP is earmarked for public distribution, with another 100 million for liquidity.
The remaining 800 million TRUMP are allocated to the “creators” and CIC Digital, which is linked to Trump’s NFT project. The first unlock is planned in three months.
Crypto investor and The Wolf Of All Streets host Scott Melker said Trump’s memecoin is a “significant advantage” for crypto but “bad for humanity.”
First take. My opinion could change.
Good for crypto, bad for humanity.
It’s a gratuitous cash grab, not sure how anyone can argue against that. The future and past President of the United States launched a token at 10 pm on a Friday night and insiders sniped the…
— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) January 18, 2025
“It’s a gratuitous cash grab, I don’t know how anyone can argue with that. The future and past President of the United States launched a token […], and insiders scooped up the supply. The remaining 80% also belong to them. They are making billions. […] Donald Trump is likely bringing millions of new people into this space. Let’s just hope it doesn’t crash,” he wrote.
Following the launch of TRUMP, more than 200,000 new users registered on Moonshot, the platform through which Trump suggested buying the token.
Today marks 6 months since launch.
In the last 12 hours, we were featured on $TRUMP’s website as THE way to buy, processed nearly $400m in volume, crushed fiat onramp records by orders of magnitude, and brought 200k+ new people onchain.
We have an extremely high load right now…
— Moonshot (@moonshot) January 18, 2025
Concerns and hopes
Arkham Intelligence suggested that if CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight, which jointly hold 80% of the TRUMP supply, effectively belong to the president-elect, his net worth has multiplied several times over.
TRUMP’S NET WORTH QUINTUPLES OVERNIGHT TO $28 BILLION
Donald Trump’s net worth is up $22 billion overnight, assuming CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which collectively own 80% of the $TRUMP supply, effectively belong to him.
At the current price of ~$28, that stake… pic.twitter.com/N7hH9QUSt9
— Arkham (@arkham) January 18, 2025
At a token price of $70, Trump’s fortune could be roughly estimated at $56 billion. Forbes put the president-elect’s net worth at about $5.6 billion in November 2024—an increase of more than tenfold.
In response to community criticism and concerns, crypto enthusiast Eric Scott argued that having 80% of the supply in the politician’s hands makes TRUMP one of the “safest coins” to hold.
Are Americans really OK with this? $Trump Coin means that foreign governments can essentially make themselves anonymous and then buy the coin in order to provide Trump with trading fees, and increase the value of his holdings in order to curry favors.
There will be no way to…
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) January 18, 2025
TradeZella founder Umar Ashraf believes that, given his position, Trump should not have his own memecoin or attempt to promote such an asset.
“This is the wrong direction for cryptocurrency,” he added.
Moonwell Finance co-founder Luke Youngblood also said, the situation presents a “bad long-term outlook” for the crypto industry.
Bloomberg has reported that Trump plans to make cryptocurrency a national priority.