United States President-elect Donald Trump‘s new meme coin debuted on January 18 on the cryptocurrency 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 Coinmarketcap data.
The market capitalisation 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.
According to CoinGecko, $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 Coinmarketcap. The circulating supply of the coin is 162.21 million units.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
(With inputs from Agencies)
