One day before officially taking office as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump is making waves in the cryptocurrency scene — not to mark his upcoming inauguration on January 20 — but to launch… Controversial meme coin He named after himself.
Launched on January 17, the cryptocurrency, dubbed the TRUMP meme coin, has sparked a great deal of discussion and is currently facing backlash for what critics have said is a questionable project for the incoming president.
Critics Condemn Trump Meme Coin Launch
While everyone expects Trump to take control of the White House, the US President-elect surprised the cryptocurrency community by launching his own meme coin on the Solana blockchain. The move has now sparked a storm of criticism that questions whether it is ethical for a US president to launch his own meme currency.
Popular YouTuber Steven Vindisen, also known as Coffeezilla, believes the launch, which comes just days before Trump’s inauguration, is ill-timed, considering that Trump will appoint the new head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
> Dropping the TRUMP memecoin two days before he takes office is bad business
> New SEC/DOJ guarantees non-prosecution
> 80% of tokens are given to insiders during the presidency
> Most people who lose money will be MAGAs who are not crypto natives
> It *should* be a crime but crime is now legal?– Coffeebreak (@coffeebreak_YT) January 18, 2025
“Dropping Trump’s memecoin two days before he takes office is bad business. New SEC/DOJ guarantees no prosecution,” Wendsen said in his post on X.
Other critics have questioned Trump’s new venture, which in their view has somewhat blurred the boundaries of government and business.
Former Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci even criticized the new meme coin as a form of “corruption,” arguing that Trump’s token could negatively impact the broader digital asset market.
The Trump meme stuff is bad for the industry. Don’t fool yourself. This is Idi Amin-level corruption.
– Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) January 18, 2025
Profit movement?
The Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center, Adav Noti, accused Trump of exploiting the presidency for personal gain, saying that the Trump meme could be considered a symbol. An exploitative effort.
According to reports, about 80% of the tokens will be distributed to individuals within the next president’s circle.
“It’s literally taking advantage of the presidency — creating a financial instrument so that people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office. It’s unprecedented,” Notti told the New York Times.
The new meme currency is also not sitting well with some figures in the cryptocurrency industry who view it as a dirty tactic.
“Trump owns 80 percent and the timing of the launch is hours before the inauguration ravenous “Many will likely be hurt by this,” Nick Tomaino, former Coinbase CEO, said in a post.
Trump coin rises
Analysts said the new Trump-based token needed just 15 minutes to reach a market cap of $400 million, saying the meme also pushed Solana’s native token SOL to an all-time high of $267.
Well, yes, the new Trump memecoin site was published almost identically to his previous NFT site.
Same cloudflare setup, same deployment with Heroku, same SSL certificate issuer.
The HTML structure is very similar as before. pic.twitter.com/u1zLD7Vcv7
– Cigar (@0xCygaar) January 18, 2025
Despite the backlash, data also showed that the new meme coin has recorded over 12,000% adoption since its launch.
The value of the coin reached roughly $35 before settling at around $29, market watchers said, adding that several cryptocurrency traders recorded gains with one investor reportedly making between $50,000 to $1.1 million within a few hours.
However, it is too early to know the future of the token, considering that only 20% of Trump’s 1 billion coins are in circulation. The remaining 80% of the tokens will be issued in the next three years.
Featured image from The Nation, chart from TradingView
