Donald Trump has taken a leaf out of Haliey "Hawk Tuah Girl" Welch's book, and while it only seemed like a matter of time, he's officially launched his own meme coin.
The aptly named $TRUMP launched just days before he stepped back into the White House as the 47th President of the United States.
With the returning POTUS promising to push the cryptocurrency industry, it's no coincidence that Bitcoin hit a record high of $109,071 on January 20 (coinciding with his inauguration).
Donald Trump wasn't the only one to jump into the crypto pool, with Melania Trump's $MELANIA also launching and actually knocking a chunk off $TRUMP's worth.
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Trump's meme coin features the now-iconic image of him raising his fist in the air, homaging the July 2024 assassination attempt against him at a Pennsylvania rally. The image is superimposed over the motto, "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT."
The meme coin's site says, "This Trump Meme celebrates a leader who doesn't back down, no matter the odds," but adds that it's ânot intended to be, or the subject of' an investment opportunity.
That hasn't stopped $TRUMP from soaring, with CoinMarketCap.com showing it hit a market capitalization of nearly $5.5 billion in a matter of hours.
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This means that some 500 traders became millionaires overnight thanks to their savvy investments.
Although 200 million $TRUMP coins have been released, 800 million are set to be released over the next three years.
Trump has also seen his net worth soar since launching his meme coin, while the Trump-affiliated World Liberty Financial announced it had raised $300 million from a token sale on January 20 and was looking to issue more.
Despite some making a fortune overnight, others have called out Trump's ownership.
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Crypto venture capitalist Nick Tomaino warned: "Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it."
Meme coins continue to be divisive, with Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson referring to them as 'icky' and UK-based meme coin trader Sam Baker saying: "It is a pure form of gambling. It is like buying a lottery ticket. But some of them are going to rise by 10,000% or 20,000%."
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Still, Trump has told his fans to 'have fun' with it.
This boom can largely be attributed to Trump's pro-crypto stance, telling audiences at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville: âWe will have regulations, but from now on the rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry." He referred to the USA as a 'bitcoin superpower' and wasted no time in trying to prove it.
Timing has been lucrative for Trump to launch a meme coin, but as reported by Forbes, Norman Eisen, an ethics adviser during the Obama administration, dubbed it potentially "the single worst conflict of interest in the modern history of the presidency."
Crypto investors are warned to keep their wits about them, especially as $TRUMP and $MELANIA might boast a market cap of more than $8.5 billion but have already tumbled from a peak of $16 billion.