President Donald Trump has been unapologetic in his goal to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet,” but some in the cryptocurrency industry are questioning Trump’s crypto competency after he launched his own memecoin in the days leading up to his inauguration.
What Is the Trump Memecoin?
The Trump memecoin, officially known as $TRUMP, is a cryptocurrency launched by U.S. President Donald Trump shortly before his 2025 inauguration. Hosted on the Solana blockchain, the coin belongs to a category of digital assets that derive value from hype and internet virality over actual money-making potential.
The crypto industry poured millions of dollars into Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign after he promised to establish a national stockpile of digital assets and oust former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, a crypto skeptic who penalized companies that didn’t comply with existing laws. But while his top supporters were celebrating the new crypto-friendly administration at a star-studded Crypto Ball event on January 17, Trump sent a shockwave through the industry, launching his very own memecoin — an asset that derives its value from hype and entertainment rather than any financial utility.
Some crypto advocates were excited by the president bringing new attention to the space, but others wondered if Trump’s memecoin would undermine their efforts to bring legitimacy to an industry that has struggled to be taken seriously amid a series of high-profile scams, short-term cash grabs and legal controversies.
What Is the Trump Memecoin?
The $TRUMP memecoin is a cryptocurrency asset on the Solana blockchain. The “meme” is an image of Trump holding his fist in the air overlaid with the words “fight fight fight,” which Trump mouthed to rally-goers moments after he was shot in the ear during a campaign rally in July 2024.
Referring to Trump as “the crypto president,” $TRUMP website describes the asset as a “meme” that is not intended to be “an investment opportunity, investment contract or security of any type.” The site accepts debit card payments, which are facilitated through an app called Moonshot.
After more than a day of trading, $TRUMP surged above $74 with a market cap of nearly $15 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap. But in the hours after Trump’s inaugural address, it fell nearly 60 percent to $31.63 and a market cap of $6.3 billion.
Two days after $TRUMP hit the market, First Lady Melania Trump launched her own memecoin called $MELANIA. This meme, which is also on the Solana blockchain, is accompanied by a black-and-white image of Melania Trump clasping her hands in front of her face.
Within several hours, $MELANIA peaked at $13.64 with a market cap of $2.2 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap. After four days, it plummeted to less than $3 — a nearly 80 percent drop from its high — with a market cap of $483 million.
What Are Other Notable Memecoins?
One of the first memecoins, Dogecoin, is also the most popular. Launched in 2013 as a joke, the coin is based on the “doge” meme: a Shiba Inu dog with funny internal thoughts depicted in colorful comic sans font. Dogecoin first garnered popularity among Reddit users, and it has since been promoted by Elon Musk. As of Jan. 27, it has a market cap of nearly $50 billion.
Memecoins are notoriously volatile, as evidenced by the recent rise and fall of the $HAWK coin. The coin was inspired by Hailey Welch, who went viral on social media after coining the phrase “hawk tuah” in a street interview. When Welch and her business partners launched $HAWK in December, it peaked with a market capitalization of $491 million. Within hours, it plummeted to less than $50 million, according to DEX Screener. Investors are now suing the coin’s creators, including Welch.
Memecoins are easy and inexpensive to produce, so new ones are hitting the market every day. One of the most recent memecoins to take hold is Fartcoin, which, like Dogecoin, started as a joke. The coin has attracted a community of people who revel in the absurdity of a coin based on nothing other than jokes about gastrointestinal functions. The coin, which launched in October 2024, peaked on Jan. 19 with a market cap of more than $2.5 billion. It had a market cap of roughly $1 billion as of Jan. 27.
Who Created the Trump Memecoin?
The Trump memecoin was created by CIC Digital LLC, which is owned by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which is co-owned by CIC Digital and Celebration Cards LLC.
CIC Digital also facilitated the Trump NFT collection by licensing Trump’s likeness, name and image to NFT INT, LLC. In a 2023 financial disclosure, Trump reported making hundreds of millions of dollars through CIC Digital’s NFTs. He also reported that he is the manager, president, treasurer and secretary of the company.
CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight, LLC own 80 percent of $TRUMP, so they stand to make a hefty profit if the memecoin performs well. The two entities have agreed to a three-year unlocking schedule that prevents them from selling all of the assets at once.
The $MELANIA memecoin appears to have different owners. The intellectual property for the $MELANIA website is owned by MKT world, an LLC the former model established in 2021. The team owns 35 percent of the assets, which can be released over the course of a 13-month vesting schedule.
The Trump Organization is also affiliated with World Liberty Financial, which launched crypto tokens “inspired by” Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign. According to the WLF website, Trump and his family own DT DEFI Marks, which owns 60 percent of the equity interests in WLF, 90 percent of the circulating tokens and fees equal to 75 percent of WLF’s token sale proceeds.
How Is the Crypto Industry Responding to the Trump Memecoin?
While $TRUMP introduced new users to the crypto space, some in the industry are worried that a memecoin may not be the best first impression.
Because memecoins derive their value from hype and are prone to pump-and-dump schemes, some crypto advocates worry $TRUMP will taint the reputation of a crypto industry that has just started to make in-roads in traditional finance circles. And they are concerned that his new financial interest in the crypto space will be seen as a conflict of interest as he shapes crypto-friendly regulations.
When a reporter asked Trump in the days after $TRUMP was released whether the president intended to continue selling products for his personal financial gain, he said, “I don’t know much about it other than that I launched it.”
Since then Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic lawmakers have asked regulators to investigate the ethics of Trump launching a product that allows him to profit off his presidency.
Concerns about corruption are even shared by Trump supporters in the crypto industry, including Nic Carter, a general partner at crypto investing firm Castle Island Ventures. He warned that Trump may be violating the emoluments clause that prevents presidents from accepting gifts from foreign leaders. “Creating a bunch of personal memecoins opens the door to secretive foreign buyers trying to curry influence with our leaders,” Carter posted on X. “If you hated Hunter Biden’s anonymous art sales, you should hate this too.”
Mark Cuban, an active crypto investor who supported Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris in the last election, posted on X that $TRUMP investors would get scammed, which would hurt the reputation of the crypto sector. “Hello every scam targeted at everyone and anyone who has no clue about crypto,” Cuban posted on X. “Good bye whatever hope the crypto industry had of legitimizing itself.”
In contrast, Jeff Dorman, co-founder of crypto asset management firm Arca, wrote in a blog post that he doesn’t think Trump’s memecoin will distract from crypto’s other uses. He believes potential issuers and investors will be able to see the value of crypto beyond the “limited use case” of a memecoin.
“TRUMP token signaled to every company, municipality, university and individual brand that crypto and blockchain can now be used as a capital formation and customer bootstrapping mechanism,” Dorman wrote.
Erik Voorhees, a longtime crypto entrepreneur, wrote on X that $TRUMP was “stupid and embarrassing,” but also a “signal of sea change in US fintech policy toward much more permissive innovation.” Meanwhile, other crypto advocates are excited to see the asset enjoy more visibility and new users. Moonshot, the crypto app that facilitated the purchase of the $TRUMP memecoin, said it brought 400,000 new users on-chain within 24 hours of $TRUMP’s launch, and those numbers have likely grown since.
Andreas Brekken, founder of SideShift.ai, told Built In that $TRUMP attracted “hundreds of thousands, if not millions of new retail users to the space.”
“Many have on-ramped from fiat, used a wallet and traded on a DEX,” Brekken said. “This is onboarding on steroids.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Trump make money from the Trump memecoin?
Trump may make money from the $TRUMP memecoin, but it’s too soon to say how much. Trump is affiliated with companies that have an 80 percent stake in the $TRUMP memecoin, but a three-year unlocking schedule prevents him from selling the coins and accessing the proceeds in the near future.
Is there more than one Trump memecoin?
$TRUMP is the only Trump memecoin. Organizations affiliated with the Trump family have also launched the $MELANIA memecoin and World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance token.
Where can you buy the Trump memecoin?
You can buy the Trump memecoin at gettrumpmemes.com, which will direct you to download the Moonshot app to facilitate your purchase on the Solana blockchain. The Trump memecoin is also available on several major crypto exchanges, like Coinbase, Kraken, Binance and Robinhood.
