People have been shocked at Donald Trump's response to hearing the worth of his cyrptocoin this week.
We've already seen the world's richest get richer in the aftermath of Donald Trump beating Kamala Harris in the US election, while the cryptocurrency market has also boomed. It seems like no small coincidence that Bitcoin hit a record high on the same day that Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States, and with the POTUS launching his own meme coin just days before he stepped back into the Oval Office, it's crypto o'clock in the United States Capitol.
Trump has officially become one of the world's richest people off the back of his $TRUMP meme coin, and even though his wife's launch of $MELANIA knocked it down a peg or two, the President's bank balance has boomed in a matter of days.
Despite his new-found fortune, CoinDesk reports that Trump doesn't seem particularly up to date with his crypto fortune.
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During his first full day back in office, one reporter asked: "Do you intend to continue selling products that benefit yourself personally while you’re President?"
Trump apparently responded: "Well, I don’t know if it benefited. I don't know where it is. I don’t know much about it other than I launched it.
“I heard it was very successful. I haven’t checked it, where is it today?"
The reporter revealed that the POTUS has made 'billions', with Trump concluding: "Several billion? That’s peanuts for these guys."
It was originally unclear who he was referring to, but it's confirmed that those in the room included OpenAI's Sam Altman, Oracle's Larry Ellison, and SoftBank's Masayoshi Son.
As Forbes' live billionaires list says Ellison has just overtaken Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest person in the world, his net worth of $228.5 billion eclipses Trump's reported $6.1 billion.
Still, $TRUMP is one to watch. Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chairman Yat Siu told CoinDesk: "Longer term, TRUMP coin could act as a barometer for public sentiment towards Trump’s presidency.
“Culture memes and tokens are essentially a highly variable public polymarket of culture and zeitgeist, and we’ve seen this play out accordingly."
It's not a guarantee, with Siu adding: "If the initiative is perceived as a cash grab without further engagement, we may well see a crypto chill for meme tokens, potentially draining attention and liquidity out of the meme space.
“How the TRUMP token is handled is likely to have a ripple effect on trust and reputation for the entire crypto and Web3 industry."
At the time of writing, $TRUMP is sitting at around $41 and has a market cap of $7.8 billion. Its fully diluted value currently stands at just under $40 billion.
Not everyone is a fan of meme coins, with Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson saying he finds the idea 'icky' and others comparing it to 'gambling'.
Trump's crypto convo came as he announced a $500 billion joint venture that’s dubbed Stargate. We've already outlined Trump's tech future, but with Stargate, it plans to boost America's AI infrastructure by building data centers in Texas.
Trump's worth continues to climb for now, but if billions of dollars are classed as 'peanuts' to him, we're not sure he'll notice.