- Donald and Melania Trump launched competing memecoins, TRUMP and MELANIA, with TRUMP hitting a US$10B market cap before falling sharply after MELANIA’s launch.
- Experts criticised $MELANIA for its amateur execution, lack of security, and insider-controlled wallet, undermining the perceived professionalism of TRUMP’s launch.
Donald Trump and his wife Melania launching a memecoin was not in our bingo cards (or at least not that quickly).
No one in the crypto community knows precisely what’s going on. Were they hacked? It seems not. Are we living in a simulation? Probably. Whatever it is, many people are questioning these events, some are even calling for the top of the bull market already.
Related: Trump’s America-First Crypto Play: XRP, Solana, USDC Could Edge Out Bitcoin
$MELANIA and $TRUMP
On January 18, 2025, Donald Trump announced on X the token TRUMP, a Solana-based cryptocurrency that, within hours after launch, had a market capitalisation of nearly US$5.5B (AU$8.8B), which currently sist at US$10B (AU$16.1B).
TRUMP is sold by CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of the Trump Organisation, which retains 80% of the token supply. The cherry on top? The TRUMP token includes terms that prevent buyers from initiating class-action lawsuits:
To the extent permitted by law, you agree that you will not bring, join or participate in any class action lawsuit as to any claim, dispute or controversy that you may have against any of the Covered Parties.
CIC Digital LLC
A day later, on January 19, Melania Trump announced her own cryptocurrency, MELANIA. But the announcement led to a sharp decline in TRUMP’s value, dropping its price from over US$70 (AU$112) to around US$39 (AU$62).
What The People Are Saying
The token launch has sparked criticism for obvious reasons, with many questioning the strategy behind launching two competing tokens. MELANIA’s tokenomics is even worse than TRUMP’s. While TRUMP allocated 80% of its supply to insiders, MELANIA retains 88%, with a faster vesting schedule, not 45% as the MELANIA website claims.
This is according to Bubblemaps, a blockchain data visualiser that revealed the supply in a single wallet (not even multi-sig).
There are some painful differences in the planning and execution of the two tokens, however. Conor Grogan, head of product business operations at Coinbase, noted that the wallet behind MELANIA had previously traded on the memecoin launchpad Pump.fun, stating that the project looks like something made by “college kids”.
My guess is that this token was handled by a different team than TRUMP’s. That one looks like professional market makers, this one honestly looks like a college kids.
Conor Grogan, CoinbaseKevin McCordic, Director of Growth at Monad, commented on X:
They HAD IT and then just undermined the whole damn thing with Melania smh.
Kevin McCordic, MonadRelated: Italy’s Largest Bank Buys $1 Million Worth of Bitcoin as Texas, Oklahoma Join List of US States Pondering Bitcoin Reserve
Cygaar, a software engineer with Abstract Chain, stressed additional shortcomings, including the rushed setup of MELANIA’s website, which lacks basic security features such as Cloudflare protection.
Credit: Source link
