特朗普的模因硬币是一个骗局，但他仍然有数百万美元

Three days before his presidential inauguration, Donald Trump launched a meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency whose value is largely driven by social media and internet culture rather than any intrinsic value or functionality.

唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）在总统就职典礼前三天发起了一种模因硬币，这是一种加密货币，其价值在很大程度上是由社交媒体和互联网文化驱动的，而不是任何内在的价值或功能。

The coin, officially called $Trump, briefly ascended into the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and attracted over a half-million buyers.

这枚硬币正式称为特朗普，通过市值短暂地进入了前15名加密货币，并吸引了超过50万的买家。

During a news conference on Jan. 21, 2025, a reporter asked Trump about the coin, questioning whether he intended to continue selling products that personally benefited him while being president.

在2025年1月21日的新闻发布会上，一名记者向特朗普询问了这枚硬币，质疑他是否打算继续销售在担任总统时亲自受益的产品。

“You made a lot of money [on $Trump], sir,” he told Trump, who seemed unaware of its meteoric rise in value.

他告诉特朗普，他对特朗普说：“您赚了很多钱。”

“How much?” Trump asked.

“多少？”特朗普问。

“Several billion dollars, it seems like, in the last couple days.”

“在过去的几天里，似乎数十亿美元。”

Over the following week, various publications claimed the meme coin had “ballooned [Trump’s] net worth” making him a “crypto billionaire.”

在接下来的一周中，各种出版物声称模因硬币“激怒了[特朗普的净资产”，使他成为“加密亿万富翁”。

While it’s true that Trump stands to benefit handsomely from the meme coin and his other crypto ventures, the claims of Trump himself earning billions off it are exaggerated.

虽然特朗普的确可以从模因硬币和他的其他加密货币冒险中受益匪浅，但特朗普本人的主张被夸大了数十亿美元。

Funny money or filch?

有趣的钱还是污点？

Meme coins became popular in 2013 with the launch of Dogecoin, which its creators intended as a joke, poking fun at the many other seemingly useless cryptocurrencies that were emerging at the time. It was never supposed to be a popular investment. The creators even attempted to make it as undesirable as possible to ensure it wouldn’t.

Meme Coins于2013年随着Dogecoin的推出而受到欢迎，Dogecoin的创作者打算是个玩笑，在当时正在出现的许多其他看似无用的加密货币上嘲笑了乐趣。它永远不会是一项流行的投资。创作者甚至试图使其尽可能不受欢迎，以确保它不会。

Twelve years later, it remains in the top 10 cryptocurrencies and has inspired thousands of other meme coins to launch.

十二年后，它仍然处于十大加密货币中，并激发了成千上万的其他模因硬币。

In 2025, it’s cheaper and easier than ever to launch and trade these tokens.

在2025年，启动和交易这些代币比以往任何时候都更便宜，更容易。

For example, all it takes to create a new coin on the website Pump.fun is a name, ticker symbol, description, image and the equivalent of roughly US$5 worth of cryptocurrency.

例如，在网站泵上创建新硬币所需的一切是名称，股票符号，描述，图像和相当于价值5美元的加密货币。

Moonshot, the crypto exchange that Trump’s meme coin website routes interested buyers to, allows users to sign up in as little as 10 minutes. They’re then able to purchase the Trump coin and a slew of other meme coins.

Moonshot是特朗普的Meme Coin网站的加密货币交易所，该网站允许用户在短短10分钟内注册。然后，他们能够购买特朗普硬币和许多其他模因硬币。

The vast majority of meme coins launched are dubious. Many are outright scams. For instance, in August 2024 the Instagram account of McDonald’s was hacked to advertise a meme coin named $Grimace in a nod to the fast-food chain’s purple mascot. After artificially inflating the price of the coin, the creators cashed out close to $700,000.

发射的绝大多数模因硬币都是可疑的。许多是彻底的骗局。例如，在2024年8月，麦当劳的Instagram帐户被黑客入侵，宣传了一个名为$ Grimace的模因硬币，以致敬快餐连锁店的紫色吉祥物。在人为地夸大了硬币的价格之后，创作者兑现了近70万美元。

There are countless other scam coins that fly under the radar using the same dynamic: generate hype, pump the price and dump on investors.

还有其他无数的骗局硬币会使用相同的动态在雷达下飞行：产生炒作，抽出价格和投资者的转储。

Looking under the hood

看着引擎盖

So how much might Trump and his associates actually benefit from his new meme coin and, more broadly, the “free-for-all” attitude his administration is taking toward the crypto industry?

那么，特朗普和他的同事实际上可以从他的新模因硬币中受益多少，更广泛地说，他的政府对加密货币行业采取的“全部自由”态度？

I study the gray area between participation and exploitation in crypto markets, and I dug deeper into the Trump meme coin.

我研究加密货币市场的参与与剥削之间的灰色区域，然后深入挖掘了特朗普模因硬币。

One way to assess whether a meme coin offering is a scam is to look at its “tokenomics” – that is, the predetermined number of units of its supply, how that supply is distributed and how much of it the creator gets to keep. The higher the percentage of the supply allocated to the creators, the more they can sell for profit. As media studies scholar Lana Swartz points out, creator tokens were originally intended for developers to crowdfund their startups. But with meme coins – which typically don’t claim to build anything – they exist to enrich their creators and, potentially, fund continued marketing of the coin.

评估模因发行是一种骗局的一种方法是查看其“令牌学”，即预定的供应单位数量，供应方式如何分发以及创建者可以保留多少。分配给创作者的供应的百分比越高，他们就能出售盈利的百分比。正如媒体研究学者Lana Swartz指出的那样，创建者令牌最初是为了开发人员来众筹。但是，有了Meme硬币（通常不声称要建造任何东西），它们的存在是为了丰富其创作者，并有可能为硬币的持续营销提供资金。

Unlike Dogecoin, which took a “fair launch” approach – meaning that its creators didn’t allocate a portion of the initial coins to themselves before allowing others to trade it – the majority of Trump tokens are allocated to its creators on a three-year-long distribution schedule.

与Dogecoin不同，Dogecoin采用了“公平发射”的方法 - 这意味着其创作者在允许其他人进行交易之前并没有将部分硬币的一部分分配给自己 - 大多数特朗普令牌是在三年内分配给其创作者的 - 长分布时间表。

In fact, 80% of the coin supply will be distributed to the coin’s creators over the course of three years. In other words, the tokenomics of the Trump meme coin are set up so that its creators can slowly sell off their large supply without drastically manipulating its price. Rather than quickly pulling the rug from under investors’ feet, they can do it slowly.

实际上，在三年的时间里，80％的硬币供应将分配给硬币的创作者。换句话说，建立了特朗普模因硬币的标记学，以便其创造者可以慢慢出售其大型供应，而无需大量操纵其价格。他们不能迅速将地毯从投资者的脚下拉出，而是可以缓慢地做到这一点。

None of this is hidden information – the tokenomics of the Trump meme coin are featured prominently on the coin’s website.

这些都不是隐藏的信息 - 特朗普模因硬币的标记学是在硬币的网站上突出的。

Notably, none of the people behind the coin will begin receiving portions of the supply until March 2025. The amount of profit they can reap will be based on future prices. At the time of this writing, the Trump meme coin was down roughly 60% from its peak.

值得注意的是，硬币背后的任何人都不会在2025年3月之前开始收到部分供应。他们可以获得的利润将基于未来的价格。在撰写本文时，特朗普模因硬币比其顶峰下降了约60％。

Who are these creators anyway? The various layers of limited liability companies behind the project, listed in fine print on the $Trump meme website, obscure which individuals stand to benefit.

这些创造者是谁？该项目背后的有限责任公司的各个层次在$ Trump Meme网站上以精美的印刷列出，个人将受益。

Presuming Trump

假设特朗普