President-elect Donald Trump late Friday launched a cryptocurrency token that exploded in value overnight, potentially increasing his net worth by tens of billions of dollars on paper just days before he is set to be sworn in as president.
Trump launched the so-called memecoin — a digital token with no intrinsic real-world value that is traded on a digital ledger technology called blockchain — with posts on his social media site and X after 9 p.m., prompting the asset to soar in value. Its market capitalization was above $5 billion as of 2:30 p.m. Saturday, according to data from CoinGecko, and it has seen more than $11 billion in trading volume.
A Trump-owned company called CIC Digital LLC owns 80 percent of the coin’s supply, according to its website. Two hundred million of the tokens are currently available, with the circulation set to grow to 1 billion over the next three years, according to the site.
The product launch illustrates the lengths Trump is going to embrace the crypto industry and the blurred ethical lines he may be crossing as he prepares to take office. He has previously sold crypto trading cards and his sons launched a digital asset company called World Liberty Financial last August. He also spoke at a major bitcoin conference during the campaign.
His financial ties to crypto come as he is vowing to enact an array of policies that would benefit the industry, including overhauling how digital assets are regulated and having the government stockpile bitcoin.
The new memecoin’s fully diluted value — the market capitalization of the coin if all tokens were in circulation — was more than $27 billion as of 2:30 p.m. Saturday, according to CoinGecko data, with the price of the token at just above $27. At that price, Trump’s company controlled more than $20 billion worth of the asset.
Leading figures in the digital asset industry were gathered at a sold-out unofficial inaugural ball put on by crypto firms when Trump began promoting the coin Friday night. Trump’s incoming crypto and AI czar, venture capitalist David Sacks, told attendees at the event that “the reign of terror against crypto is over, and the beginning of innovation in America for crypto has just begun,” according to a video of his remarks posted on X. Crypto firms have also shelled out at least $10 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, and some top executives are expected to attend his swearing-in on Monday.
A president-elect launching a new business product is a highly unusual move, and it is a major concern for ethics watchdogs, who say Trump stands to profit from policy changes he is poised to usher in.
“It is absolutely wild,” said Jordan Libowitz, vice president for communications at the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “After decades of seeing presidents-elect spend the time leading up to inauguration separating themselves from their finances to show that they don’t have any conflicts of interest, we now have a president-elect who, the weekend before inauguration, is launching new businesses along with promises to deregulate … those sectors in a way to just blatantly profit off his own presidency.”
Some Trump critics in the crypto sector also worry that the product is a bad look. Anthony Scaramucci, a crypto evangelist who briefly served as Trump’s communications director in his first term before turning into a fierce critic, wrote on X Saturday that it “is bad for the industry.”
“Don’t delude yourself. It’s Idi Amin level corruption,” he wrote, referring to the former Ugandan dictator.
Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
