Trump Launches His Own Cryptocurrency, the '$TRUMP' Coin, Promising to Make America the 'Crypto Capital of the Planet'

The Silicon Valley glitterati, social media 'influencers' and financiers had gathered on the Friday before the presidential inauguration for the Crypto Ball in Washington DC, where VIP tickets cost $100,000.

Guests at a pre-inauguration ball in Washington DC toasted the coming reign of Donald Trump as they nibbled on miniature lobster rolls and sipped mezcal cocktails.

The Silicon Valley glitterati, social media 'influencers' and financiers had gathered on the Friday before the presidential inauguration for the Crypto Ball, where VIP tickets cost a cool $100,000. They had much to celebrate.

Cryptocurrencies (digital 'tokens' that can be traded and are designed to be used as payment methods) were going mainstream and those who'd backed them were set to make their fortunes.

Back in July, Trump had promised to make America the 'crypto capital of the planet' by enacting new laws to pave the way for financial institutions and pension funds to invest in these controversial and risky assets, bringing them the respectability that has so far eluded them.

But then news started to filter out that night which horrified guests. Far from making crypto respectable, the new President had just opportunistically unveiled his own cryptocurrency, dubbed '$TRUMP', that couldっそも驚くべきことに、新しい大統領は、この暗号通貨を品位のあるものにするどころか、驚くべきことに、自分の暗号通貨を立ち上げるというまたとない機会を逃さなかったのです。この暗号通貨は「$TRUMP」と名付けられ、彼らがこれまで一生懸命取り組んできたすべてを台無しにする可能性がありました。 

The Trump 'coin' was just created in digital code out of nothing – but suddenly it was worth billions.

President Donald Trump with wife Melania at the Commander-in-Chief Ball following his inauguration this month

In a get-rich-quick scheme seemingly without parallel, the new 'currency' – with no intrinsic value, no utility and no purpose seemingly beyond adding to the President's wealth – soon made Trump and his companies $58billion richer, at least in theory, with its 200 million available coins trading at $75 a piece.

That is about twice the market capitalisation of Britain's largest supermarket chain Tesco – making him, briefly, one of the 25 richest people in the world.

Almost at a stroke, Trump increased his personal fortune nearly tenfold. It looked like the most sensational scheme for personal enrichment that the political world had even seen.

This vast fortune was, alas, only on paper, and predicated on the value of the horde of remaining coins that Trump holds, which are admittedly unlikely to retain their value.

When Trump promoted his coin to his 99 million followers on X that Friday, it was trading at $7, having risen from just a few cents.

By Sunday, it had soared to more than $75, although it later lost more than half its value before levelling out at a value of $27. There were unverified claims that one mysterious investor had bought more than $1million in coins just seconds after Trump's announcement on social media – standing to make a gargantuan profit.

Could that have been a member of the Trump clan? Who knows?

After its fall in value, Trump said of his cryptocurrency on Tuesday: 'I don't know much about it other than I launched it, other than it was very successful.'

So what was Trump doing? Why does he believe that having his own 'currency' is a good idea? And what happens next?

The President's former adviser Anthony Scaramucci accused his ex-boss of 'Idi Amin level corruption', a reference to the notoriously corrupt Ugandan dictator and kleptocrat.

Even his supporters were dismayed by what this signified – just days before his inauguration as President, Trump was jumping on the bandwagon of a scandal-plagued industry that he has previously dismissed as a 'scam'.

The Melania Trump meme coin is now available to buy, with the price charts revealing its worth

Once upon a time, The Donald shared Wall Street's widespread scepticism about cryptocurrencies, insisting in 2019 that they 'are not money' and 'based on thin air', and – without regulation – 'can facilitate unlawful behaviour, including drug trade and other illegal activity'.

But more recently, and after $130million of election campaign funding from the crypto world, he had promised to dismantle the regulatory hurdles holding the industry back.

Certainly, in creating his own coin he showed breathtaking chutzpah.

While some well-established digital currencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum (with a total valuation of more than $2trillion and $400billion respectively) can be used to buy some goods and services including Tesla cars, $Trump is of a far lesser category, a so-called 'meme coin'. These, almost by definition, are a joke – even if fortunes can be made and, more often, lost on them.

There are hundreds of different meme coins, whose names are often inspired by popular internet characters or events.

The first, launched in