Trump suddenly launched meme coin TRUMP, net worth surged several times
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Trump suddenly launched meme coin TRUMP, net worth surged several times
Although Trump controls the majority of the tokens, these tokens are still locked.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Liam
Donald Trump, America's first elected "crypto president," is leading by example to show the world how memecoins can rewrite the rules of global capital markets.
On January 18, just two days before his inauguration, Trump stunned the world by announcing his own "official" memecoin, TRUMP, on his Truth Social and X accounts.
Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: "My new official Trump meme is here! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for—victory! Join my specially crafted Trump community. Claim your Trump meme now."
Initially, the crypto community questioned the legitimacy of the token. Some warned it might be a hack or a social engineering scheme. Even Elon Musk expressed uncertainty about whether Trump’s X account had been compromised. However, as Trump’s posts remained online and Polymarket data showed only a 10% chance of account breach, skepticism began to fade, and the token’s price continued to rise.
TRUMP opened at $0.1824 but surged over 15,000% within 12 hours. By 10 a.m. Eastern Time—12 hours after launch—it was trading around $30.
Within 12 hours of its launch, the memecoin project’s market cap soared to $30 billion—approximately three times the market value of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT), which stands at around $8.7 billion. This exponential growth saw the market cap increase by $1 billion every few minutes.
According to estimates from blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, “Crypto President” Trump’s net worth skyrocketed overnight to $28 billion, thanks to the virtual currency TRUMP, increasing his estimated net worth by 400%. His affiliated companies, CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, control 80% of the supply, and the value of his personal crypto holdings alone surged to $22.4 billion. Forbes had valued Trump’s wealth at $5.6 billion in November last year.
Some industry investors noted that Trump and his family earned more money in the past 12 hours through cryptocurrency than they had in the previous 50 years combined. Perhaps this explains his strong support for crypto? And this doesn’t even factor in potential future price increases. Under Trump’s leadership, cryptocurrency values are expected to keep rising.
Conor Grogan, Head of Product Operations at Coinbase, wrote on X: "80% of the token supply is locked in a multisig wallet controlled by the creators, valued at $3 billion, with an additional $40 million added in liquidity." He added that the project received millions in seed funding from Binance and Gate—exchanges that do not serve U.S. customers. Other analysts pointed out that 80% of the circulating supply was allocated to Fight Fight Fight LLC and CIC Digital LLC, both linked to the Trump organization, while only 20% was split between public investors and liquidity pools.
Although Trump controls the vast majority of tokens, they remain locked, meaning the U.S. president is unlikely to “rug pull” on his millions of most loyal fans… at least for now.
Meanwhile, while Solana-linked memecoins pushed Solana’s market cap to a record $118 billion, Ethereum—the primary source of liquidity—saw a counter-movement, losing 5% of its value overnight and wiping out approximately $240 billion in market cap.
Trump’s move comes as the president-elect continues to champion cryptocurrency initiatives. Once openly skeptical of crypto, he made a complete 180-degree turn during his campaign, promising to reshape America’s crypto landscape and make the U.S. the “global capital of cryptocurrency.” He has nominated Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who is expected to drive this agenda. A well-known crypto advocate and former SEC commissioner, Atkins will succeed Gary Gensler, who has faced heavy criticism from the industry for aggressive enforcement actions.
While many are eager to join what may be the biggest momentum trade in history—one surpassing even social media-fueled phenomena like GameStop and AMC—some, like Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst, remain skeptical, calling Trump’s endeavor “seemingly exploitative” and “a non-coercive wrong in progress.”
Whether they’re right or wrong depends on how long it takes for this bubble to burst.
Beyond the bubble talk, what significance should we assign to this historic first moment of a “president issuing a coin”?
Raoul Pal, a global macro investor, said the signal here is the speed and simplicity of capital formation. Previous memecoins and ICOs were merely test cases; the real capital game has yet to begin—and it will completely transform capital markets.
Jeff Dorman, former Citigroup executive and current digital asset investment officer, said the market has lost rational perspective on $Trump, completely missing the broader trend.
He explained: First, potential token issuers and investors in the U.S. have been paralyzed by regulatory concerns for over three years. Now, when the president himself becomes both issuer and investor, those fears can be entirely laid to rest.
The fact that the president issued a memecoin doesn’t mean the world will only focus on memecoins. Trump has validated the technology—but only showcased one narrow use case. Future issuers and investors can go far beyond this limited application.
The internet boom began with ".com companies"—businesses that existed solely because the internet existed. Most of them failed. The internet truly took off when non-native internet companies began adopting it. Today, every company is a ".com company." Walmart, Domino’s, JPMorgan Chase—all are now ".com companies."
The TRUMP token signals to every corporation, municipality, university, and personal brand that cryptocurrencies can now serve as mechanisms for capital formation and customer engagement. New York City will issue a token. Harvard will issue a token. Netflix will issue a token.
We have now officially moved beyond blockchain’s “dot-crypto” phase. All existing use cases for crypto have come from crypto-native companies. But in the future, the entire world will innovate with tokens in ways we haven’t imagined.
When that happens, many currently useless tokens and projects will die out—but the largest and best ones will thrive, backed by millions of new investors, issuers, and users.
In Jeff Dorman’s view, if you’re an investment banker, you must start pitching token ideas to your clients—now.
Friday night’s immediate price action suggests crypto is still a joke, and the only winner will be the blockchain issuing joke coins ($SOL). But this is short-sighted. Weekend illiquidity distorts perception more than anything else.
Those calling this the “top of the cycle” have lost their minds. PTSD is real—you were all so badly burned in 2022 that you can’t envision what’s possible in the coming crypto-friendly environment.
Jeff Dorman concluded: So to sum up—even though I personally don’t care much about memecoins or the TRUMP token—I deeply care about the future applications of blockchain. And the President of the United States has just given a green light to all future possibilities.
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