A day before his official appointment as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump is causing a stir in the cryptocurrency landscape – not because of his upcoming inauguration on January 20th, but because of the launch of a controversial meme coin that he named after himself.
The crypto token called the TRUMP meme coin, launched on January 17, has sparked considerable debate and is currently facing backlash as critics said it was a questionable venture for the new president.
Critics condemn the launch of TRUMP Meme Coin
While everyone waits for Trump to take over the White House, the US President-elect surprised the cryptocurrency community by launching his own meme coin on the Solana blockchain. The move has now sparked a storm of criticism, raising questions about whether it is ethical for an American president to launch his meme coin.
Popular YouTuber Stephen Findeisen, also known as Coffeezilla, believes the release, which comes just days before Trump’s inauguration, is ill-timed considering Trump is the new chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). ) will appoint.
> TRUMP dropping memecoin two days before he takes office as president is a nasty job
> New SEC/DOJ does not guarantee prosecution
> 80% of tokens will be transferred to insiders DURING the presidency
> Most people who lose money will be MAGA who are not familiar with cryptocurrencies
> *should* be a crime, but crimes are legal now, right?– Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) January 18, 2025
“TRUMP dropping memecoin two days before he takes office as president is a nasty job. New SEC/DOJ does not guarantee prosecution,” Findeisen said in his X post.
Other critics questioned Trump’s new venture, which they said somewhat blurred the lines between government and business.
Even Trump’s former adviser Anthony Scaramucci criticized the new meme coin as a form of “corruption,” arguing that the Trump token could negatively impact the broader digital asset market.
The Trump meme coin stuff is bad for the industry. Don’t kid yourself. This is Idi Amin level corruption.
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) January 18, 2025
Greed for profit?
Adav Noti, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, accused Trump of using the presidency for his personal gain and said the TRUMP meme coin could be viewed as profiteering.
According to reports, about 80% of the tokens will be distributed to individuals in the new president’s circle.
“It means, quite literally, capitalizing on the presidency – by creating a financial instrument that allows people to transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office. This is beyond unprecedented,” Noti told the New York Times.
The new meme coin is also not well received by some personalities in the cryptocurrency industry as they see it as a dirty tactic.
“Trump owning 80 percent and planning to launch just hours before the inauguration is predatory and many will likely suffer because of it,” former Coinbase executive Nick Tomaino said in a post.
TRUMP coin rises
Analysts said the new Trump-based token took just 15 minutes to reach a market cap of $400 million and said the meme coin also catapulted Solana’s native token SOL to an all-time high of $267.
Ok yes, the new Trump Memecoin website will be deployed almost identically to his previous NFT website.
Same Cloudflare setup, same deployment with Heroku, same SSL certificate issuer.
Very similar HTML structure as before. pic.twitter.com/u1zLD7Vcv7
– Cygaar (@0xCygaar) January 18, 2025
Despite the backlash, the data also showed that the new meme coin has seen over 12,000% adoption since its launch.
Market watchers said the coin’s value reached nearly $35 before settling at around $29, adding that several crypto traders recorded profits, with one investor reportedly making $50,000 to $1 in a matter of hours. Earned $1 million.
However, it is still too early to say what the future of the token will look like, considering that only 20% of the 1 billion TRUMP coins are in circulation. The remaining 80% of tokens will be released over the next three years.
Featured image from The Nation, chart from TradingView