Trump-Linked Assets Drop in Value the Day After His Inauguration

Two assets linked with President Donald Trump dropped in value the day after he was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States.

President Donald Trump's crypto coin and media company both saw drops in value the day after he was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States.

Shares of Trump's media company, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), and the cryptocurrency coin he launched on Jan. 17 both fell early Tuesday in the stock market. TMTG stock fell 12%, while Trump's meme coin, which trades under the name $TRUMP, fell 29%.

Memecoins are a type of digital currency that isn't pegged to any financial metrics, and instead trades on investor sentiment or cultural trends. They tend to be highly volatile investments.

First Lady Melania Trump also launched a memecoin the same day as her husband, and the value of her memecoin fell 51% on Tuesday.

Trump's coin hit an all-time high of $75.35, while his wife's coin reached a peak price of $13.73. Both coins still returned significant gains to early buyers who sold the coin as it approached its peak price on Tuesday.

The Trumps launched their memecoins on the popular blockchain Solana. The move drew condemnation from Trump critics, who said it risked mixing the president's personal wealth with his official duties.

"The most dangerous thing for [the] country about Trump coin is what comes next," Trump's former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who is also a major crypto investor, wrote on X. “Now anyone in [the] world can essentially deposit money into [the] bank account of [the] President of [the] USA with a couple clicks. Every favor—geopolitical, corporate or personal—is now on sale, right out in the open."

Meanwhile, Ro Khanna, the liberal representative from California's 17th District, called for banning the sale of such assets by public officials.

"Elected officials must be barred from having meme coins by law," Khanna posted on X. "Meme coins are highly speculative and like gambling must be regulated by the SEC."

Even Trump-supporting crypto execs denounced his memecoin.

“It's absolutely preposterous that he would do this,” founding partner of the crypto investment firm Castle Island Ventures Nic Carter told Politico. “They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the meme coin launch.”

During his election campaign, Trump made many overtures to the crypto community after previously being skeptical of the asset. On the campaign trail, he promised to make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the planet."

After Trump won the election in November, Bitcoin prices soared along with other stocks connected to the crypto industry. They have since cooled.

Similar movements happened to TMTG stock in the immediate aftermath of Trump's election win. The stock shot up, then came back down.

On Tuesday, shares of TMTG were trading at $35.31 a share at the time of publication. TMTG operates the social media platform Truth Social and the Truth+ streaming service. Its share price has often served as a reflection of Trump's political prospects and a way for his voters to show their support, leading some experts to refer to it as a meme stock, meaning a stock that trades on something other than business fundamentals. In October, as the election approached, trading volumes for TMTG soared as investors decided whether to buy or sell the stock amid an extremely tight presidential race. Those trading flurries led to wild oscillations in its share price in October, prompting the Nasdaq to halt trading several times.

But TMTG stock has soared—at one point, in fall 2024, it rose 270% in a single month—and the company is a major source of Trump's wealth, at least on paper. The president personally owns roughly 114.5 million shares in TMTG, which at the current share price is valued at about $4 billion.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com