Home Melania’s crypto launch sends Trump coin spiraling

Melania’s crypto launch sends Trump coin spiraling

Donald Trump’s meme coin took a nosedive after his wife, Melania, decided to hop on the crypto bandwagon with her own token. On Sunday (Jan. 19), the price of the $Trump coin more than halved before slowly bouncing back.

Melania announced her new crypto coin on X, writing: “The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $MELANIA now.”

The coin’s official website reveals that $MELANIA is a crypto asset powered by the Solana blockchain. However, just like its counterpart $Trump, disclaimers on both sites reiterate that the tokens are not designed to be investment opportunities or classified as securities. According to the site, the team are setting aside 35% of the supply for themselves, but it’ll all unlock in 13 months.

Currently, according to CoinMarketCap, $Trump has a market valuation of around $12 billion (£9.8 billion), while $Melania’s coin is valued at a still-impressive $1.7 billion.

Trump coin crash jars crypto enthusiasts

Following the temporary crash of Trump’s own coin, The Kobeissi Letter analysts posted an image of the dramatic drop, writing: “Less than 48 hours ago, Donald Trump launched $trump which just erased $7.5bn in market cap in 10 minutes. In the minutes around the launch of Melania Trump’s token, we saw massive sell orders in $trump.

“This is insane.”

The coin reportedly erased over $5 billion in market cap in a matter of seconds.

While crypto supporters have been enthusiastic about the $Trump coin, some users have criticized the release of another family member’s coin.

One user wrote on X: “Trump just lost a huge chunk of my support. This is NOT a good look. It’s not serious at all. What’s next? $Junior, $Eric, $Kai and what not?”

Another person added: “Dude we just wanted sensible crypto regulation. Instead we got this.”

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to shake up the crypto world by creating a strategic Bitcoin stockpile and appointing financial regulators with a more crypto-friendly outlook.

That fueled hopes he’d roll back some of the stricter regulations on the industry.

After his election victory, Bitcoin skyrocketed to an all-time high and is now trading at around $107,000, according to Coinbase.

Featured image: Grok

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Suswati Basu
Tech journalist

Suswati Basu is a multilingual, award-winning editor and the founder of the intersectional literature channel, How To Be Books. She was shortlisted for the Guardian Mary Stott Prize and longlisted for the Guardian International Development Journalism Award. With 18 years of experience in the media industry, Suswati has held significant roles such as head of audience and deputy editor for NationalWorld news, digital editor for Channel 4 News and ITV News. She has also contributed to the Guardian and received training at the BBC As an audience, trends, and SEO specialist, she has participated in panel events alongside Google. Her…

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