The love affair between Trump and proponents of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is a relatively new, sometimes rocky, but highly profitable romance.
Donald Trump’s love affair with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies began at the end of 2022 with the launch of his non-fungible token (NFT) collections. Thousands of digital images of the president were photoshopped to take decades off his appearance and mocked up into superhero, cowboy, or rockstar versions of himself. Trump’s business partner Bill Zanker told Bloomberg that the president approved every one of the images: “He spends hours on it. He enjoys it. He calls it pop art.”
Sales of the NFTs brought in a few million dollars, along with mockery from many corners (including among the more ideological within the crypto space), and a burgeoning relationship with crypto supporters and industry leaders. “He fell in love with this crowd: young, ambitious, not regulated,” Zanker said.
But the grift and narcissism of Trump’s NFT collections seems to pale in comparison to his latest foray into another corner of cryptocurrencies: memecoins.
Trump’s appropriately named $TRUMP coin along with Dogecoin, DogWifHat, FartCoin, Pudgy Penguin, and tens of thousands of other “memecoins” are cryptocurrencies inspired by memes or jokes, with no pretense of utility or value, beyond pumping up prices via social media hype, hoping the coin you bet on takes off, and then dumping them on unsavvy investors. In fact, on July 13 alone, shortly after the failed attempt to assassinate Trump on the campaign trail, more than 2,000 memecoins related to Trump were created on the popular memecoin website pump.fun.
Among the myriad Trump-related memes, the $TRUMP token is the “official” coin connected to Trump himself. On the eve of his inauguration, while industry leaders were throwing a lavish “Crypto Ball,” featuring Snoop Dogg and Soulja Boy, with tickets that went for thousands of dollars, Trump did not appear at the gala himself. Instead, he was busy launching his own coin.
Posting on his Truth Social account, he wrote: “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” Its logo features an airbrushed image of Trump holding his fist in the air, overlayed with the words “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!”
The Melania coin soon followed. And even Trump’s inauguration pastor, Lorenzo Sewell, launched the Lorenzo coin with an accompanying video on Twitter/X just hours after he delivered his inaugural benediction: “I need you to do me a favor and go and get that coin, in order for us to accomplish the vision that God has called us to do on our earth.”
