Author: BlockBeats

On the eve of the inauguration of the new U.S. president, Trump pulled off a major stunt for the American people and the world. In the last two days before the compensation clause of the U.S. Constitution took effect for him, the Trump family raked in hundreds of billions of dollars through MEME coins from the crypto world.

"The U.S. president takes the lead in issuing coins," this is undoubtedly an unprecedented major event, and the $TRUMP token's level of exposure and wealth creation effect is also unparalleled. In just one weekend, its daily trading volume on the Binance platform broke through $10 billion, even temporarily surpassing BTC. From Wall Street financial institutions to the elderly on the Bund, the whole world was inquiring how to join this feast.

Interestingly, this "American MEME coin," which has deep roots, has made Chinese crypto traders one of the largest profit groups. Due to the token's issuance time being during the night in Eastern U.S. time, most American citizens were unable to seize this trading opportunity immediately. According to on-chain data and social media statistics, among the more than a hundred addresses that made over a million dollars in profit, half came from the Chinese community. Meanwhile, due to legal and regulatory controversies and differing opinions, Trump's "stunt" also caused serious divisions within the crypto community.

Review of the Coin Issuance Process

On January 18, the soon-to-be inaugurated U.S. president Trump posted on his social media account, announcing the launch of his personal Meme coin $TRUMP, which users could obtain by visiting the official website. The website stated that TRUMP is the only "official Trump Meme coin."

The gettrumpmemes official site shows that 80% of the supply of TRUMP coins is held by Fight Fight Fight LLC, an entity jointly owned by Trump's group subsidiary CIC Digital and CIC. The site also stated that the initial issuance volume of TRUMP coins on the first day was 200 million, with an expected issuance of 1 billion coins over three years, gradually increasing over three years. CIC Digital and its affiliates will receive revenue generated from TRUMP trading activities, locked for 3-12 months, and will be unlocked within the next 24 months.

Initially, the market was skeptical about this news, speculating that Trump's account might have been hacked, but hours later, the post remained and was not refuted, and the TRUMP coin surged rapidly. Twelve hours after the token's issuance, its trading price reached about $30, with an FDV of up to $30 billion. As of 8 PM Beijing time on January 19, according to CoinMarketCap data, the price of TRUMP coins had risen to a peak of $85.2 within a day and a half of issuance, with a maximum circulating market value of $85.2 billion, causing Trump's net worth to increase by $68.16 billion (approximately 498.93 billion RMB), more than ten times compared to his net worth before the coin issuance.

On the 19th, Binance, Coinbase, and OKX also announced the launch of TRUMP (OFFICIAL TRUMP) spot trading. While Trump and the SOL used to purchase Trump surged, all other tokens plummeted. ETH's price dropped to a low of $3,127, down 12% from the early morning of the 18th, and other meme tokens, AI agent tokens, etc., also experienced varying degrees of decline.

Source: CoinMarketCap

As $Trump was at its peak and experiencing extreme FOMO, Trump's wife Melania also seized the opportunity to launch her own cryptocurrency, MELANIA, on the Solana chain. On the 20th, Melania posted on social media, stating, "Melania's official Meme is online," along with a purchase link.

The Trump family's coin issuance behavior seemed to deliver a heavy blow to the market. Aside from MELANIA, which surged to a market value of $120, all other coins plummeted. The market value of TRUMP was halved from $76 billion to $35 billion, SOL dropped from $297 to $235, and Bitcoin saw a short-term decline of 6%. The crypto community angrily accused the Trump family of treating cryptocurrency as their family's "ATM," blurring the lines between government roles and business interests, and blatantly using the president's international influence for personal gain. Many media outlets questioned and condemned the Trump family's coin issuance behavior.

One Side in a Frenzy, the Other Side Picking Up the Pieces: The Wealthy Asian Crypto Traders vs. American Retail Investors Paying for Beliefs

Former Global Times editor Hu Xijin commented on Trump's coin issuance on Twitter: "Capitalism! It turns out the presidential position can be monetized like this! Mr. Trump has truly opened my eyes as someone living in a socialist country." But perhaps what opened the eyes of this former media professional even more is that aside from "insider trading," the biggest beneficiaries of this coin issuance were Asian on-chain traders.

The following chart shows the TRUMP trading trend based on Eastern U.S. time, with the coin issuance time being 9 PM on Friday, January 17, which is 10 AM on Saturday Beijing time. From the chart, it can be seen that the significant price increase from January 18 to 19 was concentrated during Asian trading hours.

TRUMP trading trend in New York time

On January 18, just one hour after the TRUMP coin was issued, and after the market cap had just surpassed $100 million, the community tracked the top profit addresses for TRUMP, revealing that 10 Chinese KOLs had made over $1 million in profit.

Source: Chain Intelligence

When TRUMP's market cap rose to $15 billion, just four hours after issuance, Chinese KOL 0xSun announced his TRUMP PnL on X, with a total cost of 3,010 SOL, and a profit of $10 million. A day later, before transferring TRUMP to CEX, 0xSun updated his PnL to show a profit of $27.5 million.

"It was 4 hours, and also 3 years of sitting on-chain, averaging over 10 hours a day," 0xSun wrote in a tweet. As TRUMP's market cap skyrocketed past $30 billion, the Chinese community was not only astonished and lamenting their missed opportunity but also reflecting on why they didn't seize this chance. Christian, the founder of 0xinfini, provided an answer, stating that without a certain amount of capital and going all-in at the right time on the Solana chain, it was impossible to achieve significant results with TRUMP.

In contrast, the performance of American retail investors appeared more passive. The publicly reported profits in the English community from Trump's coin issuance were much lower, with even top meme KOL Ansem exiting at a loss.

The address marked as Ansem made a purchase only on the morning of January 19, when TRUMP's market cap had already surpassed $30 billion. At that time, the American crypto trading platform Kraken had just launched TRUMP spot trading. On January 20, after Robinhood announced the launch of TRUMP, Ansem increased his position in TRUMP, and on January 21, Ansem sold all TRUMP, controlling his total loss to under $80,000.

American YouTuber voidzilla directly criticized in a video, "This behavior is unprecedented in terms of stupidity and fraud, using the days leading up to the presidential inauguration to hype a speculative project; this scam is simply jaw-dropping. With only two days until the inauguration, he should be busy writing his inaugural speech, not issuing meme coins. Using power for such speculation at a critical moment in the presidential campaign not only refreshes history but also blatantly tramples on all moral bottom lines."

However, the allure of the president's name was irresistible to retail investors, as on January 18 alone, Moonshot added about 400,000 new users. Twitter was flooded with posts about how to use Moonshot to purchase TRUMP, with some users even complaining about the complexity of the operation. In one discussion about the purchasing method, someone recommended using the Phantom wallet, while another user replied, "I just want to store some cash or dollars, but it keeps insisting I buy SOL, Bitcoin, etc."

Due to the inability of U.S. banks to conduct large certificate of deposit or fund transfer operations over the weekend, American investors' ability to profit from TRUMP was further restricted. The lag in fund flow caused American retail investors to miss the critical entry window, becoming liquidity providers in the later stages of the price increase.

On one hand, the Asian traders on-chain discovered the target at the right time and heavily invested; on the other hand, the American crypto community, with compliant Moonshot purchasing channels and admiration for national leaders, overlooked early tokens and willingly became the exit liquidity for the president and large holders.

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

After Melania Trump launched her namesake token, the price of $Trump fell from $78 to $35. However, with the news of Robinhood launching $Trump, it rebounded again. The news cycle over these days, combined with market making, makes one marvel at the terrifying capital conspiracy group behind it, quietly utilizing resources to maximize every exit liquidity. This is not the first time the Trump team has profited from blockchain, but it is the most sensational one, so how much has the Trump team made in the cryptocurrency field?

Political Donations in Cryptocurrency

As the first president to accept political donations in cryptocurrency, Trump has unprecedentedly accepted not only BTC but also ETH, SOL, and other mainstream altcoins, as well as meme coins like Dogecoin, with the total value of cryptocurrencies received exceeding $4 million, while also receiving millions of dollars in traditional investments from supporters in the crypto field.

Raking in $20 Million from NFTs, Just a Trial Run

In December 2022, Trump announced the launch of his first set of Trump-themed NFTs, which featured Trump in various personas, totaling 45,000 cards, priced at $99 each. Within 24 hours, the NFTs sold out, directly bringing Trump $4.5 million. This also allowed Trump, who was not particularly pro-cryptocurrency at the time, to taste the sweetness. The Trump team subsequently issued four series of similar products on Polygon, including "one limited edition," and a series on Bitcoin, selling nearly 200,000 Trump trading card NFTs and generating over $20 million in revenue from royalties.

The key driving force behind this series is CIC Digital LLC, a company founded by Trump's lawyer John Marion and former advisor Nick Luna in 2021. The issuer of "Trump Digital Trading Cards," NFT INT LLC, states on its website that it is an independent entity, "NFT INT LLC" is not owned, managed, or controlled by Trump (Donald J. Trump), but has produced and sold this NFT series by purchasing the rights to use Trump's name and likeness from CIC Digital LLC. However, suspiciously, further investigation into NFT INT LLC revealed that the contact address provided on its website is a UPS store in Park City, Utah. Yet the registered address is in Cheyenne, Wyoming, about 480 kilometers from Park City, known as "America's Little Cayman Islands," suggesting that this company is likely one of the shell companies.

Targeting DeFi Retail Investors, $300 Million Is Not Enough to Fill the Gaps

World Liberty Fi was jointly initiated by President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump. Donald Trump Jr. emphasized that this is not a simple Memecoin but a project dedicated to providing decentralized top financial and banking tools while strictly adhering to relevant regulations to ensure user safety. Interestingly, as the $Trump Memecoin launched by Trump gained popularity, the Trump family's DeFi project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) also sold out its public offering of 20 billion tokens this morning, priced at $0.015, raising a total of $300 million, with Justin Sun, the owner of the well-known chain Tron, contributing $30 million alone and announcing an additional investment of $45 million under the name of Tron DAO.

With the initial 20% of the public offering sold out, WLFI "generously" opened an additional 5% for community purchases, which, if filled again, could add another $75 million in value to the $300 million raised.

Notably, two days before the launch of $Trump, WLFI suddenly reduced its holdings of nearly 17,000 Ethereum accumulated over the past few months to 1,200 Ethereum "transferred to Coinbase or other addresses," while a large amount of ETH holders switched to Solana after $Trump drained all on-chain assets. Starting from the 19th, multiple purchases of Ethereum were made, and the current holdings have exceeded 42,000 Ethereum, making a good wave, turning Ethereum's losses into profits, and allowing Ethereum to account for more than one-third of the total assets of that address.

The Ultimate Weapon, An Unprecedented Large-scale Crypto Consolidation Scene

This should be the most frequently seen chart in recent days. The U.S. president issuing Memecoins, something that could never happen, has been rationalized in the case of Trump. The fact is that the Trump family has worked for three generations, accumulating a family fortune of $4 billion. After releasing the Memecoin, the market cap reached $80 billion within two days, and over a century of hard work could not compare to two days of global revelry. At its peak, $Trump had an FDV of $80 billion, with an actual market cap of $16 billion based on 20% of the circulating market value, but now the actual market cap has shrunk to only $6 billion. Meanwhile, the $10 billion in liquidity that drained the market has largely disappeared, not to mention the new market influx brought by the U.S. president's influence; the short-term impact of a single token on this average market of $100 billion to $200 billion is enormous.

The issuance of $Trump was handled by the Trump family's company, in addition to the previously mentioned CIC Digital LLC, the main entity is Fight Fight Fight LLC, which holds 80% of the $Trump token supply. Although the total unlocking time is three years, the unlocking model divided into six parts allows the largest portion, "40% of the share," to begin unlocking in the third month. While we cannot know how much profit the inside traders outside of this 80% have made, the launch on Coinbase and Robinhood, along with Moonshot's announcement of direct deposits from Robinhood, indicates that $Trump will likely maintain considerable heat and market value for some time with the support of Trump's supporters, traditional stock market funds, and a large number of new retail investors. Therefore, if 4% of the tokens are unlocked three months later, even if the market cap is only half of what it is now, it could still yield tens of billions of dollars in exit liquidity.

Meanwhile, Melania Trump's token $MELANIA, like the token issued by Trump, is "unrelated" to Trump himself. This token is issued by MKT World, LLC, and according to online inquiries, Melania holds the positions of both member and manager in the company, and the company address 3505 SUMMIT BLVD. WEST PALM BEACH, FL 33406 is very close to the First Lady's residence in Florida.

The token economic model of $MELANIA is quite different from that of $TRUMP. The team share is 35%, treasury 20%, community 20%, public issuance 15%, and liquidity 10%. The biggest difference lies in the token unlocking rules; the team share of TRUMP must be locked for three years, but the MELANIA team only needs to be fully locked for 30 days. Starting from the 30th day, the team share will unlock 10% first, and then gradually unlock linearly from the 2nd to the 13th month until fully unlocked in the 13th month. This short-term and unclear token distribution has caused the token's market value to plummet from $15 billion to $3.3 billion, almost only 20% of its peak, and such a hasty token unlocking rule and rapid decline of the token is reminiscent of a meme coin. It inevitably raises the suspicion that this might just be a means to let $Trump adjust its control.

Regardless, the Trump team had retained some rationality in their profit-seeking until these days, but Trump's actions have left people dumbfounded. No matter how many disclaimers or legal loopholes are used, the undeniable fact is that before becoming the U.S. president, he has made crime great again.

Pro-Trump Crypto Community Outraged, Is the "Trump Crypto Faction" Also Divided?

In fact, not everyone supports Trump's direct coin issuance. Previously, when the Trump team made $20 million from NFTs, it was relatively "mild," and many community members had not yet reacted.

But today's situation is entirely different. To circumvent presidential investment restrictions, on the eve of his inauguration, Trump and his wife directly issued coins, locked them, and sold at high points, allowing an entire interest group behind them to realize "profit without investment" at the fastest speed.

Many people expressed strong concerns that while many can profit from the crypto space, the president should not be one of them.

Venture capitalist Nick Tomaino wrote on X: "Trump holds 80% of Trump coins and has scheduled the issuance just days before the inauguration; this is undoubtedly a predatory act, and many may be harmed as a result."

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

Source: Community

Even more awkwardly for the crypto community, many who once donated politically to Trump are now publicly expressing their opposition.

"What he did is absolutely absurd," said Nic Carter, founding partner of the cryptocurrency investment firm Castle Island Ventures, who publicly admitted to being a Trump supporter, but still stated: "They launched a meme coin to see just how stupid this could get."

Even Bitcoin Magazine, a pro-Trump crypto media outlet during the election, stated on social media that TRUMP is a shitcoin.

It should be noted that Trump has been marketed as "the first Bitcoin president," and Bitcoin Magazine played a significant role in this. At the official Bitcoin 2024 conference it hosted, Trump personally took the stage to deliver a speech and announced the launch of a Bitcoin strategic reserve to ensure that the U.S. becomes the world's crypto center and a Bitcoin superpower, even planning to fire the chairman of the SEC. Trump's crypto-friendly policies all began with this speech.

"In my opinion, this is nothing more than a self-serving scheme to inflate and sell off, an unethical act, and the investors involved (should be called 'fans') are utterly foolish," the authors of Bitcoin Magazine bluntly criticized.

The values of the media are top-down. Although Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey was previously a Trump campaign advisor, he is said to be among those in the pro-Trump crypto community trying to dissuade Trump from issuing coins.

He has repeatedly clarified on social media, "I have no connection to Trump's memecoin, no prior notice, and no financial interest," adding, "My advice and advocacy are beneficial to Bitcoin and the nation."

As a crypto advisor during the campaign, David Bailey now serves more as a lubricant between Trump and the community. Even if he does not agree with Trump's coin issuance plan, he still tries to reassure the community: "I am very grateful for everything Trump has done and will do for Bitcoin and the entire industry," "Events like Ross's release will be realized," and "I will continue to support the president and his family's acceptance of Bitcoin and provide honest advice when needed"…

This also means that the crypto people around Trump have ideologically split into two factions.

Bitcoin Magazine represents one faction, while the other faction, commonly referred to as the "crypto committee," consists of members personally appointed by Trump.

The chairman of the crypto committee, David Sacks, is known as one of the founders of PayPal and later gained fame by creating Yammer and selling it to Microsoft for $1.2 billion. In the crypto space, David Sacks is most notably an investor in the crypto venture capital firm Multicoin and a staunch supporter of Solana.

"One of the dumbest attacks against me this year is that I sold SOL tokens to retail investors. If that were true, they should have made a fortune by now; congratulations to everyone holding SOL." Even during the FTX crisis, Sacks never sold SOL.

Since $TRUMP is deployed on the Solana chain, and Sacks has remained silent about these "zero-sum meme coins" during Trump's issuance of $TRUMP, many believe that the chairman of the crypto committee is indeed involved.

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

Although he tweeted nine times telling people not to buy when they started purchasing, this has already solidified the evidence that he "once issued a coin," which is exactly the same method as issuing $TRUMP. (According to community members, David Sacks recently deleted his posts about $Sacks.)

Source: Community

This has led many to develop a distaste for David Sacks, feeling that his methods are too opportunistic and overly eager to profit through such radical means. Even if Sacks did not directly participate, as the chairman of the crypto committee, he should be held accountable for this incident. There are even rumors that some have proposed replacing the entire leadership of David Sacks's crypto committee with a new team.

According to a Washington crypto lobbyist who wished to remain anonymous, almost everyone in the crypto field is currently vying for a seat on that committee. Many crypto giants, including a16z, Coinbase, Paradigm, Ripple, Kraken, and Circle, are very interested in seeking a voice in U.S. crypto policy reform.

After all, the ordinary member seats of this crypto committee are highly coveted, and David Sacks's every word and action as committee chairman is crucial.

This is not the first time the Trump team has shown instability. During his last presidential term, the internal team members of the Trump administration experienced significant factional struggles and personnel changes, with resignations being commonplace.

In this term, aside from the competition for seats on the crypto committee, the internal political risks of the Trump team are also reflected in other aspects.

Although not naming names, Messari founder Ryan Selkis tweeted urging Trump to fire those involved in initiating the $MELANIA project. "The project team lacks professional capability, which may cause significant economic losses and damage to reputation, and the project decisions did not fully consider Trump's interests." Selkis pointed out the issues with $MELANIA.

Compared to the $TRUMP coin, the launch of $MELANIA by Melania Trump was indeed more hasty. The front-end code was incomplete, the images were not compressed, the website was only built the day before the project launch, and the legal text was also not rigorous. Many netizens speculated that there are many differences in the methods of $MELANIA and $TRUMP, possibly indicating that they were not operated by the same team.

"If my sources are correct, $TRUMP was pushed by the crypto czar, while $MELANIA was done by the worldliberty team. But it can be confirmed that these two coins were not made by the same team," more than one community member revealed.

How Long Does It Take to Consume Trust?

The emergence of TRUMP at the time of Trump's impending inauguration was originally a shocking event for the world and an uplifting moment for the cryptocurrency circle. We have always hoped that cryptocurrency could present a more compliant, stable, and secure image to the mainstream public worldwide. In this desire, $TRUMP carried too many expectations from the crypto community—originating from the soon-to-be U.S. president's hands, who could not imagine that this would be the beginning of the new U.S. government's further embrace of cryptocurrency? How much new attention could this historic positive image attract for cryptocurrency?

$TRUMP came from Trump's hands, but unfortunately, it did not come from "President of the United States" Trump, but from "businessman" Trump. "President of the United States" Trump certainly had the ability to issue and promote $TRUMP and even the entire cryptocurrency market with higher moral standards and more complete legal compliance standards, but "businessman" Trump displayed nothing but naked greed and disregard for ethics, completely treating the cryptocurrency market as a cash cow for monetizing his influence, eagerly issuing one asset after another to seize more benefits.

Ultimately, Trump only mentioned the cryptocurrency industry for votes. Has he ever seriously considered how to better promote the development of this industry? What we see is a completely self-centered figure, with no regard for basic industry rules and ethics, placing himself above the entire crypto market. In Trump's eyes, the cryptocurrency market might not be much different from setting up a stall in front of his house; as long as someone is willing to pay for his influence, he feels there is nothing wrong with his actions.

Melania Trump's coin issuance has become a helpless self-mockery within the cryptocurrency circle—Trump and his family are mocking how foolish our unrealistic expectations are.

From a speculator's perspective, this is undoubtedly a speculative boom, with no narrative or push feeling more perfect. But is this truly good for the industry?

What Trump will lose is not only the trust of the cryptocurrency community but also the moral responsibility of an American president.