- Donald Trump launched an official memecoin just days before taking office.
- The Trump memecoin briefly topped the crypto memecoin charts.
- Early buyers made huge profits.
Several investors potentially made millions in the first frenzied hours of trading after then President-elect Donald Trump launched a memecoin.
Dubbed Official Trump with the TRUMP ticker, the memecoin sparked a frenzied scramble of buying activity from sophisticated trading bots and other insiders. Its value briefly became the second-biggest meme token in crypto’s history rocketing to a market value of over $14 billion only hours after its debut.
One early investor traded $1 million to acquire almost 6 million Trump coins, according to DL News analysis of blockchain transactions. The investor is sitting on $304 million in unrealised profits. They’ve also funnelled some of the tokens to other wallets that have sold the memecoin on the market.
Another major early buyer who invested almost $1 million holds $78 million in unrealised profits. The wallet has sold a small fraction of its Trump holdings for $1.7 million.
Traders who were unsure of the token’s legitimacy soon invested in it as it attained viral status on social media.
The rapid surge was followed by a massive slump that saw its market value slide more than 52% in one hour.
The token has rallied somewhat since the sudden slump but is still 30% off its peak market value. It’s worth $10 billion.
Trump’s “official memecoin” is now crypto’s third-biggest meme token, behind Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, which are valued at $54 billion and $12 billion respectively.
The slump coincided with the release of another memecoin from the crypto stables of America’s soon-to-be-first family.
Melania Trump, wife of the President-elect, launched her own memecoin that peaked at almost $2 billion.
The Melania token likely diverted liquidity from Trump’s memecoin as traders rushed to be early investors in the latest Trump family coin.
Onchain data examined by DL News shows wallets rotated profits from Trump’s memecoin to Melania’s soon after the latter’s launch.
Investors who were late to the Trump token were caught offside amid the memecoin’s massive price slump.
One trader lost $6.4 million on their initial $25.7 million investment in Trump coin. Onchain data shows the trader sold the bulk of the almost one million tokens they bought after the slump.
Another major loser has incurred a $5 million loss on their $17.8 million investment in the token.
They’ve sold 82% of their Trump token holdings at a loss.
Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.
