Donald Trump's Official Memecoin Jumpstarts Fresh Speculative Activity in the Solana Ecosystem

Multiple large-cap tokens based on Solana surged higher Saturday, and the blockchain's native SOL token set fresh highs above $275.

Fresh speculative activity has gripped the Solana ecosystem almost immediately after Donald Trump’s official memecoin began trading.

On Saturday, several large-cap Solana-based tokens experienced gains, and the blockchain’s native SOL token reached new highs above $275 as the president-elect endorsed a new Solana-based TRUMP token on Friday night, labeling it his “official” memecoin.

CoinDesk reported on Saturday that Trump’s decision to use Solana as an issuance network increased demand and sentiment for SOL tokens.

Over the past 24 hours, SOL trading volumes have skyrocketed from $3 billion on Thursday to more than $26 billion, with Saturday’s activities bringing weekly gains to over 46%.

This marks a nearly 3,000% increase from the three-year lows of $9 in December 2022, which occurred following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX and the strong backing of its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, which at the time dampened enthusiasm for Solana.

On the Solana blockchain, Trump’s official memecoin was issued late on Friday in the U.S. by a group that included Jupiter and Meteora, two significant players in the ecosystem. In the past 24 hours, the prices of Jupiter’s JUP tokens have increased by 30%.

The BBC reports that CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, and the newly formed company Fight Fight Fight LLC worked together to launch the token. The two organizations own 80% of the tokens, which are subject to a vesting period of over three years. It is unclear how much money Trump will make from the project.

Amid widespread uncertainty over whether the token was actually backed by Trump or if someone had hacked his account and issued a fake token, TRUMP prices soared from a few cents to $14 in less than six hours.

It trades above $44 in Asian afternoon hours on Sunday and has been listed on major exchanges like Coinbase and Binance as well as a few futures products. It has become the third-largest memecoin by market capitalization, trailing dogecoin DOGEUSD and shiba inu SHIBUSD but surpassing pepecoin PEPEUSDT.