Trump’s new coin and its cryptocurrency rises on his first day in office | Donald Trump news
A cryptocurrency project linked to US President Donald Trump, World Liberty Financial (WLF), has raised $1 billion in token sales, while the new Trump coin has also surged to more than $10 billion in market capitalization as Trump takes office for his second term. .
WLF made the announcement on Monday, the day Trump was sworn in as president.
The boom in Trump-linked cryptocurrency projects comes as he promises to usher in a “golden age” for cryptocurrencies, in stark contrast to the regulatory scrutiny of the industry imposed under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
The WLF, promoted and formed by Trump, his sons and Trump’s new special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was launched two months before the US election.
Trump’s new coin, branded $TRUMP, was launched on Friday night during the first-ever Crypto Ball in Washington, D.C., coinciding with the inauguration festivities. The coin rose on Monday from less than $10 on Saturday morning to $74.59 before giving up some of its significant rally.
The new currency expands Trump’s interests in cryptocurrencies beyond WLF.
Melania Trump launched her own coin, $MELANIA, on Sunday. Its rise has pushed its market value beyond $1 billion.
Four-fifths of the Trump coin tokens are owned by CIC Digital, a subsidiary of Trump’s businesses, and another entity called Fight, Fight, Fight, according to its website. It says the coins are “an expression of support and engagement with the ideals and beliefs embodied by the ‘$TRUMP’ token” and are not an investment or security.
The WLF’s launch just two months before the US election in November has raised concerns about ethics and conflicts of interest. The launch of the meme on Friday night also raised red flags, even among those in the cryptocurrency industry.
“While it is tempting to dismiss this as just another Trump spectacle, the launch of an official Trump token opens a Pandora’s box of ethical and regulatory questions,” said Justin DeNithan, an independent cryptocurrency analyst based in Hong Kong.
Cryptocurrency attorney Preston Byrne published a blog post on Sunday anticipating a civil lawsuit challenging the coin.
“Someone will lose money, and a lawyer will come along with a theory and a file,” Byrne wrote. “From a purely political perspective, launching a memecoin is a huge mistake.”
Byrne declined to comment further.
“Crypto head”
The Trump Organization said this month that the president will hand over day-to-day management of his multibillion-dollar real estate, hotel, golf, media and licensing portfolio to his children when he enters the White House.
As of 2:45pm EST (19:45 GMT), the Trump coin was trading at $42.20, giving it a market value of about $8.5 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
CoinMarketCap data showed that trading volume within twenty-four hours amounted to about $40 billion.
WLF sold nearly 22 billion tokens on Monday, according to the company’s website, exceeding its original goals.
This includes a total investment of $75 million from Tron founder Justin Sun, who was charged with fraud and cryptocurrency-related securities violations during the Biden administration.
Excitement over so-called cryptocurrencies has helped fuel a broader rise in cryptocurrency prices as traders and investors become more hopeful that Trump will make good on his promise to be a “crypto president” by easing regulations and promoting ownership of digital assets.
Several key figures in the Trump administration and his circles have ties to the cryptocurrency industry.
Bitcoin reached $104,031 on opening day and is up nearly 7 percent so far this month.
Trump and Melania’s cryptocurrencies were built on the lesser-known Solana network, which CoinMarketCap ranks as the third largest blockchain network.
The price of the Solana coin also rose over the weekend, reaching an all-time high of $294.33 on Sunday.
“The cryptocurrency market has gained additional popularity in recent hours due to Trump and Melania’s crypto launches just before the opening,” Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Konotoxia Ltd., said in a statement.
Blurred lines
Peter Schiff, chief economist and global strategist at Euro Pacific Asset Management, noted the jump in the value of the Trump dollar and called it the new digital gold, on social media.
Forbes magazine estimates Trump’s net worth at $6.7 billion. This does not include the value, at least on paper, of Trump’s coins or his earnings from the WLF.
The prospect of looser regulations around cryptocurrency policy was met with much fanfare by the industry and led to a significant rally in Bitcoin after Trump won the election in November.
The significant rise in the prices of new currencies raised concerns among some analysts.
“Meme cryptocurrencies, like these, are subject to high volatility and we generally consider them to be speculative assets,” said Konotoxia’s Drozdz.
Danthan, a cryptocurrency analyst in Hong Kong, said Trumpcoin represents a blend of the world of decentralized finance into the political arena, but it also “blurs the lines between governance, profit and influence.”
Should public figures, especially those with such political influence, exercise this kind of influence in speculative markets? “This is a question that regulators are unlikely to ignore,” he said.
The websites for Trump and Melania Trump avoid referring to them as cryptocurrencies, instead using the phrase “fungible crypto assets” in their FAQs.
On Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. posted on X that the $TRUMP coin is “the hottest digital meme on Earth” and that WLF will be “the future of finance.”
“We’re just getting started,” he said.
