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• In a move that perfectly encapsulates the peculiarities of our times, Donald Trump launched a meme coin  (Trump Coin)on January 17th, 2025, just a few days before his presidential inauguration. Within less than 24 hours it has reached a staggering market capitalization of $4.8 billion and a fully diluted valuation of $24.3 billion. “Trump Coin” has taken the crypto currency world by storm, potentially positioning itself to challenge Dogecoin’s supremacy in the meme coin ecosystem.

• The emergence of a presidential meme coin might seem unprecedented, but in the context of Trump’s brand-leveraging history, it follows a familiar pattern. From Trump University to Trump Hotels, casinos, and even NFTs, the president has consistently demonstrated his ability to monetize his personal brand. What’s different this time isn’t the strategy, but the medium – and ironically, the regulatory environment that made it possible.

What are meme coins and how do they work?

• US President-elect Donald Trump launched a meme coin by the name of $Trump on Friday, just days ahead of his inauguration scheduled for Monday. His wife Melania Trump followed suit on Sunday, launching a meme coin $MELANIA, ahead of her return to the White House for the second time as the First Lady of the United States.
• Since their launch, both $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins have gained significant attention. $Trump has gained a market cap of $8.87 billion, while Melanie’s coin has a market cap of $1.19 billion. According to Coin Gecko, Donald Trump’s meme coin is currently the 22nd most valuable crypto currency in the world while Melanie’s coin stands as the 94th most valuable.
• The in-coming US President has promised that his administration would be a crypto friendly one. Many big names from the crypto industry have been named in various roles in the administration.

So what exactly are meme coins and how do they work?

• Meme coins are a form of crypto currency or digital asset that take their inspiration from internet memes and trends. They usually get their names from characters, animals, or individuals popular on social media. Meme coins are heavily influenced by internet memes, pop culture, online hype, and social media trends, and just like any other form of crypto currency, they are highly volatile and speculative.
• These coins, like any other crypto currency, are created using block chain technology. The block chain technology stores and shares data across a network and the tokens are hexadecimal numbers stored in the block chain that facilitate transactions. The images of the coin are inspired by internet memes, making them attractive among investors. For ownership purposes, they have private keys.
• Dogecoin, backed by Trump ally Elon Musk, and Shiba Inu are some popular meme coins.

Are meme coins better than other crypto?

Advantages:

• Meme coins are an attractive and fun asset that can be used to learn about crypto currency and block chain technology.
• Meme coins are often less expensive than most other crypto currencies. Thus, they become more

Disadvantages:

• Meme coins are highly volatile and work on speculations and trends. Therefore, they are quite risky for investors.
• Meme coins are digital assets without intrinsic value. They have no uses beyond tokens for trading or speculation.
• Due to the lack of enough regulation on meme coins worldwide, the risk of potential scams is very high.

How high can the Official Trump Coin go?

• Currently trading at $25, Trump Coin’s potential ceiling is a subject of intense speculation. While a scientific long term price prediction is impossible, with Dogecoin’s market cap hovering around $60 billion, simple arithmetic suggests that if Trump Coin were to overtake Dogecoin as the premier meme coin, its price could potentially reach $100-300 per token. While such projections are highly speculative and assume limited selling from insiders, they highlight the significant paper wealth creation effects of the meme coin space.

Can Official Trump Coin overtake Dogecoin?

• For potential speculators, Trump Coin presents a complex calculation. While its connection to a sitting president and strong initial market performance might seem attractive, meme coins are volatile and often follow unpredictable trajectories. The token’s success could depend as much on sustaining community enthusiasm as on any fundamental factors.
• As Trump Coin vies for meme coin supremacy, its trajectory will likely influence future discussions about crypto currency regulation, political branding, and the role of meme assets in the financial ecosystem. Whether it ultimately succeeds in dethroning Dogecoin may matter less than what its very existence reveals about the current state of crypt currency markets and regulation.

Trump Coin & Meme coins Are Gary Gensler’s Legacy

• Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Trump Coin’s launch is its timing and context. As Gary Gensler exits the SEC after years of aggressive crypt currency enforcement, the incoming president launches a meme coin. This is not a coincidence.
• The strict interpretation of securities laws that follows from Gensler’s school of thought, while intended to protect investors, may have inadvertently pushed cryptocurrency innovation toward meme coins rather than utility tokens. Consider the cautionary tales of Libra (later Diem), LBRY and the like, which spent millions attempting to launch a legitimate cryptocurrency only to be stymied by regulatory hurdles. Meanwhile, meme coins like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and now Trump Coin have flourished precisely because they make no pretense of being securities: they explicitly position themselves as purely speculative assets with no promise of profit sharing or underlying utility.
• This dynamic has created what might be called “the regulatory safe harbor of absurdity” – the more explicitly a token positions itself as a meme with no serious utility, the safer it becomes from securities regulation. This perverse incentive structure has contributed to the proliferation of meme coins, which now represent a significant portion of the crypt currency market cap.

The Ethical Risks of Presidential Pumps

• The launch of Trump Coin raises serious ethical questions about the intersection of political power and speculative assets. Unlike traditional Trump-branded ventures, crypto currency’s pseudonymous nature means anyone globally can invest without identity checks, potentially creating concerns about undue influence on a sitting president. These concerns echo but potentially amplify similar issues raised around Trump’s other business interests, including Trump Media and Technology Group’s  Truth Social platform.
• In the end, Trump Coin’s launch represents more than just another presidential branded venture or cryptocurrency speculation. It stands as a testament to the law of unintended consequences in regulatory policy, where efforts to protect investors from cryptocurrency speculation may have instead channeled that speculation into increasingly unusual forms. Gary Gensler may have left the SEC, but his legacy lives on in ways he likely never anticipated.

Donald Trump’s meme coin gets $11bn market cap, drags crypto market — Check how Bit coin, Ethereum, Solana performed

• United States President-elect Donald Trump‘s new meme coin debuted on January 18 on the crypt currency markets and attracted billions of dollars of investment. At the time of writing on January 20 (IST), $TRUMP was trading at $60, up over 64 per cent from the previous day but lower than its peak of $75, according to Coin market cap data.
• The market capitalization of Trump’s meme coin was pegged at $11.74 billion, also up over 64 percent from the previous day. There are 200 million Trump meme coins in circulation on the crypto market at present.

Donald Trump Could Be Among Richest in World

• According to Coin Gecko, $TRUMP is currently the 22nd most valuable form of crypto in the world while $MELANIA is the 94th most valuable, adding them among the richest in the world.
• The Trump family crypto tokens have led to a significant surge in the wealth of incoming US President Donald Trump, making him one of the richest people in the world, according to a New York Times report.
• At one point during the weekend, $TRUMP hit $15 billion in value amid skyrocketing trade volumes and interest before sliding to $10 billion on Sunday (January 19), as per a Bloomberg report.
• Notably, $TRUMP fell from its $75 level high after soon-to-be first lady Melania Trump announced her own rival crypto meme coin, $MELANIA and pulled millions in a 3,000 per cent jump on open when it hit a high of $13.14 each. At the time of writing, Melania Trump’s coin is trading at $11.42 with a market cap of $1.62 billion, as per data on Coin market cap. The circulating supply of the coin is 162.21 million units.

Trump Meme Coins Rattle Big Players

• According to the Bloomberg report, the debut of Donald and Melania Trump’s meme coins has rattled the wider cryptocurrency market. Both market leaders, Bitcoin and Ether, took big hits, with other leading names, XRP and Tether, also falling.
• Solana, whose associated blockchain is being used for the Trumps’ meme coins, fared better than the other top cryptocurrencies over the weekend, it added.
• According to data on coinmarketcap, the global crypto market cap this morning is $3.51 trillion, a 3.49 per cent decrease over the last day. However, the total crypto market volume increased by 82.31 per cent over the last 24 hours to $348.81 billion.

Bitcoin

• At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $102,115.37, down 2.71 per cent from the previous day. Market cap was also down by 2 per cent to $2.02 trillion, while volume over the past 24 hours surged by 80.95 per cent to $90.83 billion, as per Coinmarketcap. Further, the dominance of the world’s largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is 57.33 per cent, an increase of 0.28 per cent over the day.

Ethereum

• The second biggest cryptocurrency Ethereum is trading at $3,273.32 today, down 0.67 per cent from the previous day. Market cap is also down from the previous day at $394.44 billion, while the trade volume surged 90.52 per cent over the past 24 hours.

Solana

• Solana is at $244.44 at the time of writing, down 9.23 per cent from the previous date, with a market cap of $118.94 billion (down 9.51 per cent) and 24 24-hour trade volume of $35.76 billion (up 48.64 per cent).
• Sydney-based Richard Galvin, co-founder of hedge fund DACM told Bloomberg crypto coins were trading “poorly” due to the “size of the capital flowing” to the Trump tokens. Representatives for Trump did not respond to queries, the report added.

Reactions to $TRUMP and $MELANIA Divided

• Meanwhile, crypto investors remain in “party mode”, awaiting executive orders from Trump that will reduce regulatory roadblocks and promote widespread adoption of digital assets, according to a Reuters report.
• While fans and crypto enthusiasts have hailed Donald Trump and his family’s “business savvy” in making crypto decisions, critics have called into question the ethics and even conflict of interest arising from the assets.
• Trump has promised to usher in crypto-friendly regulations and has nominated a host of pro-crypto names to key positions in his administration.