On the eve of the inauguration of the new U.S. president, Trump pulled off a huge stunt for the American people and the world. In the final two days before the emolument clause of the U.S. Constitution took effect on himself, the Trump family made off with billions of dollars from the crypto world through a MEME coin.

The "U.S. President Lead-in Coin" was an unprecedented event, and the level of circulation and wealth effect of the $TRUMP token was unparalleled. In just one weekend, its daily trading volume on the Binance platform surpassed tens of billions of dollars, even momentarily surpassing BTC. From Wall Street financial institutions to the elderly on the Bund, the whole world was inquiring about how to join this feast.

Interestingly, this authentic "U.S. MEME Coin" made Chinese crypto enthusiasts one of the biggest beneficiary groups. Since the token was issued during the night in the Eastern U.S., most American citizens did not seize the trading opportunity in time. According to on-chain data and social media information, among over a hundred addresses that profited over a million dollars, half were from the Chinese community. Meanwhile, due to legal and regulatory disputes and disagreements, Trump's "sophisticated operation" also caused significant division within the crypto community.

Coin Issuance Journey Review

On January 18, on the eve of the inauguration, U.S. President Trump posted on his social account, announcing the launch of his personal Meme coin $TRUMP, where users could obtain the Meme token by visiting the official website. The website stated that TRUMP was the only "official Trump Meme coin."

The gettrumpmemes website showed that 80% of the TRUMP coin's total supply was held by entities owned by the Trump Group's affiliate companies, CIC Digital and CIC, through their jointly owned entity Fight Fight Fight LLC. The website also stated that the initial supply of TRUMP coins on the first day was 200 million, with a planned total issuance of 1 billion over three years in incremental increases, where CIC Digital and its affiliates would benefit from TRUMP transaction-generated revenues, locked up for 3-12 months before unlocking over the next 24 months.

Initially, there were doubts in the market about this news, speculating that the Trump account might have been hacked. However, hours later, the post remained active without any denial, and the TRUMP coin surged rapidly. Twelve hours after the token issuance, its trading price reached about $30, with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) soaring to $300 billion. As of 8 p.m. Beijing time on January 19, according to CoinMarketCap data, the price of TRUMP coin had risen to a peak of $85.2 within a day and a half of issuance, with a fully circulating market cap reaching $852 billion. This led to a $681.6 billion surge in Trump's net worth (approximately 4.9893 trillion RMB), more than 10 times his net worth before the coin issuance. On the 19th, Binance, Coinbase, and OKX also announced the listing of TRUMP (OFFICIAL TRUMP) spot trading. Apart from Trump and sol, which was used to purchase Trump, all other tokens experienced a bloodbath crash, with ETH dropping to a low of $3,127, a 12% decline from the early morning of the 18th. Other meme tokens, AI agent tokens, etc., all saw varying degrees of decline.

Image Source: CoinMarketCap

And just as $Trump was at the peak of his influence and experiencing extreme FOMO, Trump's wife Melania also took advantage of the situation by launching her own cryptocurrency on the Solana blockchain called MELANIA. On the 20th, Melania posted on social media, stating, "The Melania official meme is online," along with a purchase link.

The Trump family's trend-following coin launch seemed to deliver a heavy blow to the market. While MELANIA soared to a market value of $120 under the influence of FOMO, all other coins plummeted. TRUMP's market value halved from $760 billion to $350 billion, SOL dropped from $297 to $235, and Bitcoin saw a 6% drop in a short period of time. The crypto community angrily pointed out that the Trump family treated cryptocurrency as their "ATM," blurring the line between governmental role and business interests. They blatantly took advantage of the president's international influence for their own gain. Many media outlets questioned the Trump family's coin issuance and opposed and criticized this profit-taking behavior.

Scalping on one side, Holding the Bag on the Other: The Newly Rich Asian Crypto Traders vs. American Retail Investors Holding the Faith

Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times in China, commented on Trump's coin issuance, saying, "Capitalism! It turns out that the presidential position can be monetized in this way! Mr. Trump has really broadened the horizons for someone like me living in a socialist country." However, perhaps what surprised this former professional media person even more was that in addition to the "insider trading," the group that benefited the most from this presidential coin issuance were the Asian on-chain traders.

The chart below shows the TRUMP trading trend based on US Eastern Time, with the coin being issued on the evening of Friday, January 17, at 9 PM, which is Saturday morning in Beijing at 10 AM. It can be seen from the chart that the significant price surges on January 18th and 19th were mostly concentrated during the Asian trading session.

New York Time TRUMP Trading Trend Chart

On January 18th, just one hour after the TRUMP coin was issued and its market value had just surpassed one billion US dollars, the community compiled a list of the top profit-taking addresses for TRUMP. This list included 10 Chinese Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) whose profits exceeded one million US dollars.

Image Source: ChainTea

When TRUMP's market cap rose to $15 billion just 4 hours after launch, Chinese KOL 0xSun shared his TRUMP PnL on Twitter, revealing a total cost of 3,010 SOL and a profit of $10 million. A day later, 0xSun transferred his TRUMP to a centralized exchange (CEX) and updated his PnL for the last time, showing a profit of $27.5 million.

"It's been 4 hours, but also 3 years squatting on-chain for over 10 hours a day since joining the crypto community," 0xSun wrote in a tweet. As TRUMP's market cap skyrocketed to over $30 billion, the Chinese community was amazed and some regretted not buying the bottom. Xinfini founder Christian provided an answer, suggesting that without a significant capital base on Solana and going all-in at the right time, it would be impossible to achieve such huge gains on TRUMP.

In contrast, U.S. retail investors appeared more passive. The English community saw far fewer profits from TRUMP's launch, with even top meme KOL Ansem exiting at a loss.

The address tagged as Ansem made his purchase in the early morning of January 19 when TRUMP's market cap had already exceeded $30 billion. This was right after the U.S. crypto exchange Kraken launched TRUMP spot trading. On January 20, following Robinhood's announcement of TRUMP listing, Ansem bought more TRUMP, only to sell off all his holdings on January 21, keeping his total loss under $80,000.

U.S. YouTuber voidzilla heavily criticized the situation in a video, saying, "This behavior reaches unprecedented levels of stupidity and fraud, leveraging the days leading up to the presidential inauguration to hype a meme project. Such a scam is simply jaw-dropping. Just two days before the inauguration, he should have been busy preparing his inaugural address, not launching a meme coin. To use power for such hype during a crucial moment in the presidential election not only breaks historical records but also blatantly tramples all moral boundaries."

However, the President's brand still proved irresistible to retail investors, with Moonshot adding approximately 400,000 new users on January 18 alone. Twitter was flooded with posts about how to use Moonshot to purchase TRUMP, with some users even complaining about its operational complexity. In one discussion about the purchasing process, someone recommended using the Phantom wallet, to which another user replied, "I just want to deposit some cash or dollars, but it insists on making me buy SOL, Bitcoin, or something like that."

Due to the inability of U.S. banks to process large deposits or fund transfers over the weekend, further restricting American investors' gains on TRUMP, the delayed fund movement caused U.S. retail investors to miss a critical entry time window, becoming liquidity providers in the later stages of the price surge.

On one hand, Asia-based traders who are always on-chain discovered the asset at the right time and took a large position; on the other hand, the U.S. crypto trading community had compliant Moonshot purchase channels combined with admiration for their national leader, leading them to overlook early chips and willingly become liquidity for the President and whales.

How Much Money Did the Trump Family Make from the Crypto Market?

After Melania Trump launched a token bearing her name, the price of $Trump also plummeted from $78 to $35. However, with the news of $Trump listing on RobinHOOD, the price surged again. The recent market manipulation, along with news releases, made one sigh at the terrifying conspiracy of capital behind the scenes, covertly utilizing every liquidity exit to the extreme. This is not the first time the Trump team has profited from blockchain, but it is the most sensational. So, how much money has the Trump team made in the cryptocurrency field?

Cryptocurrency Political Donations

As the first president to accept cryptocurrency political donations, he unprecedentedly accepted not only BTC but also mainstream altcoins like ETH, SOL, and even meme coins like Dogecoin on his official website. The value of cryptocurrency received exceeded $4 million, while supporters from the crypto industry also received millions of dollars in traditional investments.

Raking in $20 Million on NFTs is Just a Small Step

In December 2022, Trump announced the release of his first set of Trump-themed NFTs. These trading cards featured Trump portraying various characters, with a total of 45,000 cards priced at $99 each. Within 24 hours, the NFTs were sold out, directly earning Trump $4.5 million. This allowed the then crypto-skeptical Trump to taste success. Similar products, including a limited run special edition on Polygon and a series on Bitcoin, sold nearly 200,000 Trump trading card NFTs, bringing in over $20 million in revenue to the Trump team.

The key orchestrator behind this series is CIC Digital LLC, a company founded in 2021 by former President Trump's lawyer John Marion and ex-aide Nick Luna. The issuer of the "Trump Digital Trading Cards," NFT INT LLC, stated on its website that it is an independent entity. "NFT INT LLC" does not belong to, manage, or control Donald J. Trump and instead obtained authorization to use Trump's name and likeness by purchasing it from CIC Digital LLC to create and sell this NFT series. However, upon further investigation of NFT INT LLC, it was found that the contact address provided on its official website belongs to a UPS store in Park City, Utah. The registered address, however, is in Cheyenne, the capital of "America's Little Cayman Islands," Wyoming, approximately 480 kilometers away from Park City. This indicates that this company is likely one of those ghost companies.

《Did the 10x Trump NFT in 2 days come from the former president himself?》

In Search of DeFi Suckers: $300 Million Not Enough to Plug the Gap

World Liberty Fi was initiated by President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump. Donald Trump Jr. emphasized that this is not just a Memecoin but a project dedicated to providing top-tier decentralized financial and banking tools while strictly adhering to relevant regulations to ensure user safety. Interestingly, following the hype around the $Trump Memecoin released by Trump, the Trump family's DeFi project, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), sold out its 20 billion tokens offered in the public sale this morning at $0.015 per token, raising a total of $300 million. Among the contributors was the prominent Tron blockchain's founder Justin Sun, who alone contributed $30 million and announced an additional $45 million investment in the name of the Tron DAO.

With the initial 20% of the public sale allocation sold out, WLFI has generously opened an additional 5% allocation for the community to purchase. If this additional allocation is also fully subscribed, the on-chain address with a value of $300 million could receive an additional $75 million.

It is worth noting that WLFI, in the two days before $Trump's release, suddenly reduced from hoarding 17,000 Ethereum on this address for months to 1,200 Ethereum "transferred to Coinbase or another address," while $Trump heavily drained on-chain assets, and many Ethereum whales switched to Solana. Starting on the 19th, multiple purchases of Ethereum were made, and the current holdings have exceeded 42,000 Ethereum, executing a "good swing," turning Ethereum's losses into gains and surpassing one-third of the total assets on this address.

The Ultimate Weapon, an unprecedented Crypto large-scale consolidation scene

This is probably the most frequently seen chart in recent days. The U.S. President launches a Memecoin, a seemingly impossible scenario but somewhat rational when applied to Trump. In reality, the Trump family has worked hard for three generations, and the family's wealth has finally accumulated to $4 billion. After releasing the Memecoin, the market cap reached $80 billion within two days, overwhelming over 100 years of struggle with just two days of global celebration. At its peak, $Trump had an $800 billion fully diluted valuation. Considering a 20% circulating market cap, the actual market cap was $160 billion, but now it is only at $60 billion. However, most of the $10 billion in liquidity that was absorbed from the market has disappeared. Putting aside the influence the U.S. President could bring to the market, the short-term impact of a single token on a market worth an average of $1-2 trillion is significant.

The company responsible for launching $Trump, owned by the Trump family, in addition to Trump's earlier mentioned CIC Digital LLC, is primarily Fight Fight Fight LLC. These two companies hold 80% of the $Trump token allocation. Although the total unlock period is 3 years, with the majority of the allocation (40%) for the third month, we cannot know for sure how much benefit insiders beyond this 80% received. However, with the listing from Coinbase to Robinhood and Moonshot's announcement enabling direct deposits from Robinhood, $Trump should be able to sustain its popularity and market cap for quite some time using Trump's supporters, traditional stock market funds, and a large number of newbies. Hence, if 4% of the chips are unlocked after 3 months

Even if the current market value is halved, it is still possible to achieve a liquidity exit of tens of billions of dollars.

On the other hand, the token of former U.S. President Trump's wife, the First Lady of the United States, $MELANIA, is similar to the token issued by Trump himself in that it is "unrelated" to Trump. The token is issued by MKT World, LLC, and according to information found in an online search of the company's details, Melania's position in the company is both a member and a manager, and the company's address at 3505 SUMMIT BLVD. WEST PALM BEACH, FL 33406 is very close to the Trump family residence in Florida.

The tokenomics of $MELANIA are somewhat different from $TRUMP. Team Share 35%, Treasury 20%, Community 20%, Public Issuance 15%, Liquidity 10%. The biggest difference lies in the token unlocking rules; Trump's team share requires a 3-year lockup, while the Melania team only needs a full lockup for 30 days. Starting from day 30, the team share will unlock 10% initially, followed by a linear unlock from month 2-13, until fully unlocked by month 13. This short-term and unclear chip allocation has caused the token's market value to plummet rapidly from $15 billion all the way down to $3.3 billion, almost only retaining 20% of its peak value. Such hasty token unlocking rules and the rapid decline in token value in a short period are reminiscent of meme coins. One can't help but speculate whether this is just a means to allow $Trump to buy back in control.

Regardless, Trump's team had retained some rationality in their wealth accumulation in the days leading up to this, but Trump's recent actions have left people in awe. Regardless of the number of disclaimers or exploitation of legal loopholes, it is an undeniable fact that before the former U.S. President entered the "Make America Great Again" office, he first made "Crime Great Again."

The Pro-Trump Crypto Group Starts a Quarrel, Is the "Trump Crypto Faction" Also Divided?

In fact, not everyone supports Trump's direct issuance of a coin. Previously, the Trump team minted NFTs to earn $20 million, which was considered relatively "mild," and many community members had not yet reacted.

However, today's nature is completely different. In order to circumvent presidential investment restrictions, on the eve of the "Swan City" inauguration, the Trump couple directly carried out airdrops, lockups, and early high-point buy-ins and sell-offs, allowing an entire interest group behind them to achieve "profit without investment" at the fastest speed.

Many people can harvest in the crypto space, but the president himself cannot, and many people have expressed strong concerns about this.

Venture capitalist Nick Tomaino wrote on Platform X: "Trump holds 80% of TrumpCoin and scheduled the issuance date just a few days before the inauguration, which is undoubtedly a predatory act that may harm many people."

Anthony Scaramucci, a banker who briefly served as White House Communications Director during Trump's previous term (fired after 10 days in office), also criticized on Platform X: "Trump meme coins are harmful to the cryptocurrency industry; we cannot deceive ourselves."

Image Source Community

Even more embarrassing for the crypto space, initially we donated political contributions time and time again, we shouted "Fire Gary Gensler," we longed for a pro-crypto president, we hoped the crypto industry would receive more attention and liquidity.

Has it been achieved? Yes, it has. According to community and exchange platform staff, a well-known exchange platform usually has only a few hundred registered users and $700,000 in OTC trading volume. However, on January 20th, the number of new registrations reached 120,000 and the OTC volume reached $100 million. Furthermore, the number of new user registrations on a leading exchange platform in three days also exceeded several million.

But the means of achieving this was not to designate Bitcoin as the U.S. national strategic reserve, not to approve a new batch of mainstream coins through an ETF, not to establish new crypto laws, but to launch meme coins that drained most of the crypto space's liquidity.

Image Source: WeChat Community

It is neither dignified nor ethical. Many in the crypto community who once supported Trump have now openly expressed opposition.

“What he did is absolutely absurd.” Nic Carter, Founding Partner of the cryptocurrency investment firm Castle Island Ventures, publicly admitted to being a Trump supporter, but still said, “For them to roll out a meme coin to explore this is just how dumb it can get.”

Even the crypto media outlet Bitcoin Magazine, known for its pro-Trump stance during the election, has taken to social media to call TRUMP a Shitcoin.

It is worth noting that Trump was marketed as the “First Bitcoin President of the United States,” and Bitcoin Magazine played a significant role in this. At the official Bitcoin 2024 conference hosted by the magazine, Trump took the stage to deliver a speech, announcing the launch of a Bitcoin strategic reserve to ensure the U.S. becomes a global crypto hub and a Bitcoin superpower. He also planned to dismiss the Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Trump’s crypto-friendly policies all began with this speech.

“To me, this is nothing but a pump-and-dump self-enrichment scam, an unethical act, and the investors involved (or should I say ‘fans’) are incredibly foolish.” However, Bitcoin Magazine's authors are now openly criticizing this. Related reading: "Bitcoin Magazine Criticizes $TRUMP: Trump Likes Cryptocurrency Only If It Can Be Used for Personal Gain"

The media's values are top-down, and although Bitcoin Magazine's CEO David Bailey was previously a Trump campaign advisor, it is said that he was among the crypto-friendly group advising Trump against launching a coin.

He has repeatedly clarified on social media, “I have no association with Trump’s memecoin, no prior notice, no financial interest,” and “My recommendations and advocacy are all beneficial to Bitcoin and the country.”

As a crypto advisor during the election period, David Bailey's current position is more like a lubricant between Trump and the community. Even though he does not endorse Trump's coin issuance plan, he still tries to appease the community: "I am very grateful for everything that Trump has done for Bitcoin and the entire industry and will do," "Events like Ross's release will be realized," "I will continue to do my best to support the president and his family in their acceptance of Bitcoin, and provide honest advice when needed"...

This also means that the crypto people around Trump have now been divided into two ideological factions.

One faction is Bitcoin Magazine, while the other faction, standing opposite Bitcoin Magazine, is commonly referred to as the "Crypto Council," whose members were personally appointed by Trump.

The Crypto Council's chairman, David Sacks, is well known as one of the PayPal founders, gained fame later by creating Yammer and selling it to Microsoft for $1.2 billion. In the crypto world, David Sacks' most important identity is as an investor in the crypto venture capital firm Multicoin and a Solana maximalist.

"One of the dumbest attacks against me this year is that I sold SOL tokens to retail. If that were true, they should be rich by now, congratulations to all SOL holders." Even when FTX went under, Sacks never sold SOL.

Since $TRUMP is deployed on the Solana chain, and during Trump's issuance of $TRUMP coin, David Sacks has always remained silent on these "zero-sum meme coins," many people believe that the chairman of the Crypto Council has been involved in it.

Another piece of evidence is that David Sacks has a "criminal record." In March 2024, David Sacks posted about a memecoin called $Sacks with his name.

Although he tweeted nine times telling people not to buy when they started purchasing, this has already confirmed the evidence that he "used to issue coins," which is exactly the same as the method used to issue $TRUMP coin. (According to community feedback, David Sacks recently deleted his posts about $Sacks.)

Source Community

This has made many people start to resent David Sacks, feeling that his approach is too much of a get-rich-quick scheme, too eager to seek profit through this radical approach. Even if Sacks did not directly participate, as the chair of the Crypto Council, he should still take responsibility for this incident. There are even rumors that some have proposed replacing the entire leadership team of David Sacks' Crypto Council and bringing in a new lineup.

According to a Washington cryptocurrency lobbyist who preferred to remain anonymous, almost everyone in the crypto space is vying for a seat on this council. Numerous crypto giants such as a16z, Coinbase, Paradigm, Ripple, Kraken, and Circle are very interested in this and are seeking to have a say in the reform of U.S. crypto policy.

After all, even the ordinary member seats on this crypto council are like hot cakes, with David Sacks' every word and action as the council chair being key.

This is not the first time the Trump team has shown an unstable state. During the previous presidential term, there was a great deal of factional infighting and turnover among members of the Trump administration, and resignations were commonplace.

In addition to the competition for seats on the crypto council during this term, the internal political risks of the Trump team are also evident in other aspects.

Although not naming names, Messari founder Ryan Selkis tweeted urging Trump to fire those involved in launching the $MELANIA project. "The project team lacks expertise, could cause significant economic and reputational damage, and the project decisions do not fully consider Trump's interests." Selkis pointed out the issues with $MELANIA.

Compared to the $TRUMP coin, Melania Trump's launch of $MELANIA was indeed more hasty. The frontend code is incomplete, images were not compressed, the website was only built the day before the project was launched, and the legal text is also not precise. Many netizens speculate that there are many differences in the approaches of $MELANIA and $TRUMP, indicating that they may not be operated by the same team.

「If my source is correct, $TRUMP is driven by the Crypto Tsar, while $MELANIA is done by the worldliberty team. However, one thing we can be sure of is that these two coins are not made by the same team.」 More than one community member has revealed.

The Erosion of Trust, How Long Will It Take?

TRUMP emerged onto the scene at the time of Trump's inauguration, originally a shocking event that astonished the world and uplifted the cryptocurrency community. We have always hoped that cryptocurrency would demonstrate a more compliant, stable, and secure image to the world at large. In this aspiration, $TRUMP carried too many expectations for the cryptocurrency community—it originated from the hand of the incoming US president. Who could not imagine this as the beginning of the new US government embracing cryptocurrency? How much new attention could this beginning attract to cryptocurrency with a historically positive image?

TRUMP came from Trump's hand, but regrettably, it did not come from the hand of the "US President" Trump, but from the hand of the "Businessman" Trump. The "US President" Trump had the complete ability to issue and promote $TRUMP and even the entire cryptocurrency market with higher ethical standards and more robust legal compliance standards. However, the "Businessman" Trump displayed blatant greed and disregard for ethics, treating the cryptocurrency market as a cash machine to monetize his influence, eagerly issuing asset after asset to seize more benefits.

In the end, Trump mentioned the cryptocurrency industry only for votes. Did he really consider seriously how to better promote the industry's development? What we saw was a "big player" entirely self-centered, without basic industry rules and ethics in mind, placing himself above the entire cryptocurrency market. In Trump's eyes, the cryptocurrency market may be no different from setting up a stall on his doorstep. As long as someone is willing to pay for his influence, he may feel that there is nothing wrong with his actions.

On the other hand, Melania's coin issuance has become a helplessness and self-deprecation within the cryptocurrency community—Trump and his family mock how foolish our unrealistic expectations are.

From a speculator's perspective, this is certainly a speculative heyday, with no more perfect narrative and foreshadowing than this. But is it really good for the industry?

What Trump will lose is not just the trust of the cryptocurrency community in him but also the morality and responsibility of a US president.

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