The price of the Trump meme coin, issued by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's team, skyrocketed, briefly surpassing a market capitalization of $14 billion (approximately 20.43 trillion won). The First Lady, Melania Trump, also launched a meme coin. A meme coin refers to a cryptocurrency created based on parodies or jokes, with no intrinsic utility but a speculative nature. As a result of the issuance of Trump Coin, Ripple, which ranked third in market capitalization, plummeted by more than 10%.
According to the cryptocurrency information platform CoinGecko on the 19th (local time), the price of the Trump coin (Official Trump, $TRUMP), traded since about 11 p.m. on the 17th (Eastern Time), soared to $73.43 at one point on the morning of that day. Based on approximately 200 million tokens circulating in the market that day, the market capitalization of this coin briefly exceeded $14.7 billion (21.46 trillion won).
However, the price of the Trump coin significantly declined after 4 p.m. that day, trading at $40.11 by 6:30 p.m. Based on this price, the market capitalization stood at about $8.2 billion (approximately 12 trillion won). Its overall ranking among cryptocurrencies dropped from the 20th to around the 27th.
On the 17th, Trump noted through social media accounts such as Truth Social and X (formerly Twitter), "When we celebrate everything we support, 'victory,' here is my new Official Trump Meme," announcing the launch of the meme coin. A meme coin refers to a cryptocurrency created based on parodies or jokes, without intrinsic utility.
Later that afternoon, Melania Trump posted on her X account, "The Official Melania Meme has been launched. You can buy '$MELANIA' now," linking to the coin's homepage. As the transactions started, buyers flocked in, causing the price to quickly surpass $8.
Some are criticizing the Trump family for engaging in such a meme coin business. On that day, the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin traded at over $101,000, down more than 2% from the previous day, while most other major cryptocurrencies showed weakness. Ripple recorded a drop of 10.25% to $2.91 compared to the previous trading day.
The New York Times (NYT) pointed out in an article covering the sharp rise in the price of Trump Coin that "the Trump family's new venture (coin) business has become a phenomenon generating enormous profits overnight, but it raises increasing criticism and ethical issues."