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Donald Trump’s memecoin has plunged more than 90 per cent in price from its peak a year ago, in a sign of how the excitement around the US president’s controversial cryptocurrency has evaporated.
Launched ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January last year, the $TRUMP memecoin briefly surged from $1.20 to a high of $75.35, according to CoinMarketCap data. One year on, it is trading at $4.86, a 94 per cent decline from that peak.
A couple of days after the $TRUMP coin was launched, his wife Melania Trump also debuted a memecoin. The price of that jumped to a high of $13.73 but is now trading slightly below $0.15, according to CoinMarketCap data, a fall of 99 per cent from its peak.
The sharp falls in price leave investors who bought at the peak nursing heavy losses and are likely to add to criticism of the president’s crypto businesses. The Trumps’ crypto activities have generated more than $1bn in pre-tax profits, a recent Financial Times investigation found.
Investor enthusiasm for memecoins reached fever pitch in late 2023 and early 2024. The volatile tokens, which can be launched by anyone online, have no fundamental value, business model or cash flow and rely on their popularity and relationship to viral moments or popular figures to generate speculative interest.
Despite the fall in price, $TRUMP remains the fifth-biggest memecoin by market capitalisation, according to CoinMarketCap.
The president and his wife’s memecoins have been heavily criticised by crypto industry figures, governance experts and Democrats for being a quick moneymaking mechanism and abuse of power.
The precise division of profits made from both entities is unclear but the FT investigation found that the $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins have generated about $427mn in sales and trading fees.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has championed the industry by appointing pro-crypto regulators and pardoning some criminals. He and his family have launched several crypto businesses.
Governance specialists are calling for landmark US crypto market structure rules that are at present being fleshed out in Washington to include stringent guardrails to protect against government conflicts of interest. Groups, including the Democracy Defenders Action and the Project on Government Oversight, wrote to the Senate last week urging it to include measures banning the president and other senior officials from owning or trading cryptocurrencies.
Otherwise, the system “can be exploited by those in power, exposing everyday investors to fraud, manipulation and abuse”, they wrote, pointing to the Trump family’s various crypto businesses.
The Trump companies have meanwhile moved on to other things. Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform and is controlled by the president’s family, is planning to issue a new crypto token to shareholders on February 2, as part of a deal with exchange Crypto.com.
