PARIS: US President Donald Trump’s newly created cryptocurrency soared on Monday to more than US$10 billion in market value as he took office for his second term, drawing in billions in trading volume, while Bitcoin’s price hit a record high, just hours ahead of Trump’s return to the White House.
Launched on Friday, Trump’s “meme coin”, also known as $TRUMP, soared from less than US$10 on Saturday morning to as high as US$74.59 before giving up some of its huge rise on Monday.
Trump launched the digital token with branding including an image from his attempted assassination in July, expanding his cryptocurrency interests that already include World Liberty Financial.
Melania Trump launched her own coin, $MELANIA, on Sunday. Its rally pushed its market cap well beyond US$1 billion.
Four-fifths of Trump coin’s tokens are owned by CIC Digital, an affiliate of Trump’s business, and another entity called Fight, Fight, Fight, according to its website. It says the coins are “an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol ‘$TRUMP'” and are not an investment or security.
The launch of the coins caused surprise and concern even among those in the cryptocurrency industry.
“While it’s tempting to dismiss this as just another Trump spectacle, the launch of the official Trump token opens up a Pandora’s box of ethical and regulatory questions,” said Justin D’Anethan, an independent crypto analyst based in Hong Kong.
Cryptocurrency lawyer Preston Byrne published a blog post on Sunday, in which he predicted a 90 per cent probability of a civil lawsuit opposing the coin to occur within the next 14 days.
“Someone will lose money, some lawyer will come up with a theory and file,” Byrne wrote, adding that, “The memecoin launch is, from a purely political perspective, an enormous unforced error.”
Byrne declined to comment further.
The Trump Organization said this month the president would hand daily management of his multi-billion-dollar real estate, hotel, golf, media and licensing portfolio to his children when he entered the White House.
By 5.30pm GMT, Trump’s coin was trading at $45.21, giving it a market cap of just over US$9 billion, according to CoinMarketCap, which ranked it as the 19th biggest cryptocurrency.
Twenty-four-hour trading volume was nearly US$40 billion, CoinMarketCap data showed.
