特朗普在上任前几天推出了不稳定的加密代币

唐纳德·特朗普总统向加密货币投资者承诺，他将为这个长期陷入金融荒野的行业迎来一个合法时代

President Donald Trump, who has promised to usher in an era of legitimacy for crypto, launched a meme coin days before taking office.

唐纳德·特朗普总统承诺开创加密货币的合法性时代，他在就职前几天推出了一款模因币。

Photo: AFP

照片：法新社

President Donald Trump promised crypto investors he'd usher in an era of legitimacy for an industry that's long been relegated to the financial wilderness - dismissed by some mainstream investors as an highly speculative bet at best or an elaborate Ponzi scheme at worst.

唐纳德·特朗普总统向加密货币投资者承诺，他将为这个长期陷入金融荒野的行业带来一个合法性时代——一些主流投资者认为，这个行业往好了说是高度投机性的赌注，往坏了说是精心设计的庞氏骗局。

But days before his inauguration, Trump shocked many of his crypto supporters by peddling a digital token known as a meme coin, a functionally worthless asset that trades on hype and are a go-to vehicle for scams known as rug pulls.

但在就职典礼前几天，特朗普兜售了一种被称为模因币的数字代币，震惊了他的许多加密货币支持者。模因币是一种功能上毫无价值的资产，靠炒作进行交易，是一种被称为“拉地毯”的诈骗的首选工具。

To be clear, not all meme coins are scams, and the $TRUMP and $MELANIA coins appear to have safeguards built in to prevent a rug pull. Specifically, the Trump coin's website says its majority holders are subject to a three-year unlocking schedule, so they can't sell all at once. But even without selling a single token, the Trump Org. had raked in an estimated $58 million in a single day in trading fees alone, according to crypto researcher and former Coinbase executive Conor Grogan.

需要明确的是，并非所有模因币都是骗局，$TRUMP 和 $MELANIA 币似乎内置了保护措施，以防止出现骗局。具体来说，特朗普币的网站称，其多数持有者必须遵守三年的解锁时间表，因此他们不能一次性全部出售。但即使不出售任何代币，特朗普组织也能做到这一点。据加密货币研究员、Coinbase 前高管康纳·格罗根 (Conor Grogan) 称，单日交易费估计就赚取了 5800 万美元。

Yet meme coins have become known for rug pulls, in which developers launch a coin, run up its price and quickly cash out. If that sounds familiar, the "Hawk Tuah" influencer Haliey Welch was recently sued over her own coin, which briefly soared to a $500 million market cap before falling 90%. Welch said in a statement posted to X last month that she takes the situation seriously and is working to help affected investors.

然而，迷因币因拉动而闻名，开发商推出一种币，抬高其价格并迅速兑现。如果这听起来很熟悉，“Hawk Tuah”影响者 Haliey Welch 最近因其自己的代币而被起诉，该代币的市值曾短暂飙升至 5 亿美元，然后下跌 90%。韦尔奇在上个月发布给 X 的一份声明中表示，她认真对待这一情况，并正在努力帮助受影响的投资者。

Meme coins, explained: A quick guide to the absurd, at times fraudulent, side of crypto that bitcoin and ether proponents would like to move past

Meme 币解释：比特币和以太币支持者希望摆脱的加密货币荒谬、有时甚至是欺诈性一面的快速指南

The fact that America's first "pro-crypto" president is hawking a token with no tangible utility has some in the industry concerned about Trump and his advisers' judgement as they prepare to overhaul the US regulatory regime with a new zeal for digital assets.

美国第一位“支持加密货币”的总统正在兜售一种没有实际效用的代币，这一事实引起了业内一些人对特朗普及其顾问的判断的担忧，因为他们准备以对数字资产的新热情彻底改革美国的监管制度。

"Trump needs to fire his crypto advisors, from top to bottom," tweeted Gabor Gurbacs, founder of digital asset firm Pointsville.

数字资产公司 Pointsville 的创始人 Gabor Gurbacs 在推特上写道：“特朗普需要从上到下解雇他的加密货币顾问。”

One giant ethical concern centers on Trump's majority ownership of the tokens: 80% of the coin's supply is held by Trump Organization affiliates CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC - a concentration that appears designed to personally enrich the president. Trump Org did not respond to a request for comment, but Eric Trump, the company's executive vice president, said in an X post Saturday: "I am extremely proud of what we continue to accomplish in crypto. $Trump is currently the hottest digital meme on earth."

一个巨大的道德问题集中在特朗普对这些代币的多数所有权上：该代币供应量的 80% 由特朗普组织的附属公司 CIC Digital 和 Fight Fight Fight LLC 持有——这种集中似乎是为了让总统个人致富。 Trump Org 没有回应置评请求，但该公司执行副总裁 Eric Trump 在周六的 X 帖子中表示：“我对我们在加密领域继续取得的成就感到非常自豪。$Trump 是目前最热门的数字模因在地球上。”

"Even meme coin enthusiasts are skeptical of projects where the majority of tokens are not held by a broader community and appear to be designed in way that disproportionately benefits insiders," Gareth Rhodes, managing director at advisory firm Pacific Street, told me. "But it is early, and the launch team can still take action to make it a more community-focused project."

咨询公司 Pacific Street 的董事总经理加雷斯·罗兹 (Gareth Rhodes) 告诉我：“即使是迷因币爱好者也对大多数代币不是由更广泛的社区持有、而且其设计方式似乎对内部人士有利的项目持怀疑态度。” “但现在还为时过早，启动团队仍然可以采取行动，使其成为一个更加以社区为中心的项目。”

Ethics experts swiftly decried the apparent conflict of interest.

道德专家迅速谴责了这种明显的利益冲突。

Walter Shaub, the ethics watchdog who clashed with Trump during his first term before stepping down, told my colleague Matt Egan the meme coin maneuver suggests "the very idea of government ethics is now a smoldering crater."

道德监管机构沃尔特·肖布(Walter Shaub)在特朗普第一个任期内与特朗普发生冲突，随后辞职，他告诉我的同事马特·伊根(Matt Egan)，模因硬币的举动表明“政府道德的理念现在已经是一个闷烧的火山口。”

The Trump administration, which officially entered the White House on Monday, didn't respond to CNN's request for comment.

周一正式入主白宫的特朗普政府没有回应 CNN 的置评请求。

The dangers of meme coins

模因币的危险

The global $3.5 trillion crypto market is a big tent, and while tokens like bitcoin dominate the industry, the open-sourced, decentralized nature of the blockchain, crypto's infrastructure, makes it easy for any developer to launch a token, run up the price and walk away with impunity. According to Forbes, between 40,000 and 50,000 new meme coins are created every day, with a combined market value of $100 billion.

全球 3.5 万亿美元的加密货币市场是一个大帐篷，虽然像比特币这样的代币在该行业占据主导地位，但区块链、加密货币基础设施的开源、去中心化性质使任何开发者都可以轻松地推出代币、抬高价格并逍遥法外。据《福布斯》报道，每天都会产生 40,000 至 50,000 个新的 Meme 币，总市值达 1000 亿美元。

People tend to buy meme coins for the novelty, but doing so is about as risky as playing a casino slot machine. Trump's meme coin shot up after its launch Friday, from about $6.50 to $75 on Sunday, according to data from Coingecko. Then it tumbled, losing more than half its value on Monday as Trump entered the White House without any public nod to his crypto agenda. The price was hovering below $40 Tuesday.

人们倾向于购买迷因币来寻求新奇，但这样做的风险与玩赌场老虎机一样危险。根据 Coingecko 的数据，特朗普的表情包币在周五推出后价格飙升，从约 6.50 美元升至周日的 75 美元。然后随着特朗普入主白宫而没有公开认可他的加密货币议程，该币值暴跌，周一损失了一半以上的价值。周二价格徘徊在 40 美元以下。

Last week, just a few days before Trump launched his token, the New York State Department of Financial Services issued a consumer alert over "rapidly proliferating" meme coins, which present "exceptional risk of fraud and loss of funds."

上周，就在特朗普推出其代币的前几天，纽约州金融服务部就“迅速扩散”的模因代币发出了消费者警报，这些代币存在“欺诈和资金损失的特殊风险”。

Matthew Homer, a former financial regulator and now general partner of the crypto firm Department of XYZ, echoed a common industry refrain that a lack of regulatory clarity around crypto has contributed to those fraud risks.

前金融监管者、现任加密货币公司 Department of XYZ 的普通合伙人 Matthew Homer 呼应了行业中的一个常见说法，即加密货币监管缺乏明确性导致了这些欺诈风险。

The Securities and Exchange Commission's approach, he said, "created a situation where projects with genuine utility face significant regulatory hurdles

他表示，美国证券交易委员会的做法“造成了一种情况，即具有真正实用性的项目面临重大监管障碍”