TRUMP memecoin riches prompted billions of dollars for newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, an amount he called “peanuts” compared to corporate bigwigs in his first token address since launch.
“I didn’t know much about it other than when I launched it. I heard it was successful,” Trump said at a press conference Tuesday when asked by a reporter. “Where is it now? How many billions?
“That’s nuts for these guys,” he added, referring to the net worth of other entrepreneurs in the room that included SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.
Token prices zoomed 25% in the past 24 hours, beating gains in bitcoin (BTC) and other majors, to reverse losses from earlier in the week. It had an $8 billion market capitalization as of Wednesday morning, up nearly 900% since going live.
Trump also announced a $500 billion joint venture called Stargate at the event, which aims to build data centers in Texas and invest in AI infrastructure.
Meanwhile, some see TRUMP as a bet on Republican popularity and policies in his term, with ripple effects on how it could shape the Web3 and memecoin market.
“In the longer term, the TRUMP coin can act as a barometer for public sentiment toward the Trump presidency,” Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands told CoinDesk in a message. “Memes and cultural tokens are a highly variable public polymarket of culture and zeitgeist, and we’ve seen it work accordingly.”
“(However) If the initiative is treated as a cash grab without further engagement, we may see a crypto chill for meme tokens, potentially draining attention and liquidity from the meme space. How the TRUMP token is handled is likely to have a ripple effect on trust and reputation for the entire crypto industry and Web3,” added Siu.
