Donald Trump unveiled a video gold, a type of crypto whose value is fueled by social media and internet tradition rather than any form of functionality or intrinsic value, just days before his inauguration as president.
The coin, which is officially known as$ Trump, briefly climbed into the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market cap and attracted over a half-million investors.
A reporter asked Trump if he would remain selling items that would benefit him privately while serving as president in a press event on January 21, 2025, making reference to the penny.
” You made a lot of money ]on$ Trump], sir”, he told Trump, who seemed indifferent to its meteoric rise in value.
” How little”? Trump asked. ” Some billion dollars, it seems like, in the last few days”.
Over the following week, various publications claimed the meme coin had “ballooned]Trump’s ] net worth” making him a” crypto billionaire“.
Trump may have a lot of money from the image gold and his other crypto ventures, but the claims that he himself make a lot of money off of it are exaggerated.
Interesting wealth or purloin?
Meme cash gained popularity in 2013 with the release of Dogecoin, which its authors intended as a prank and parodied the numerous different apparently pointless cryptocurrencies that were popping up at the time. It was never supposed to be a common purchase. The creators also made an effort to make it as unattractive as possible to make sure it wouldn’t.
It is still among the top ten cryptocurrencies a year later and has inspired the release of thousands of different image coins.
In 2025, it’s cheaper and easier than ever to build and industry these currencies. For instance, all it takes to create a fresh gold on the website Pump. enjoyment is a brand, ticker symbol, information, image and the equivalent of about US$ 5 worth of cryptocurrency.
Moonshot, the blockchain change that Trump’s image gold site roads interested buyers to, allows users to sign up in as little as 10 days. The Trump penny and a number of other image coins are then available to them.
The majority of new image currencies are questioned. Some are outright ripoffs. For example, in August 2024 the Instagram accounts of McDonald’s was compromised to sell a joke gold named$ Grimace in a smile to the fast-food company’s colored symbol. The coin’s authors cashed out near to$ 700,000 after deliberately increasing the price.
There are numerous different scam pennies that fly under the radar by utilizing the same formula: create excitement, pump the cost, and dump on buyers.
Looking under the helmet
So how much does Trump and his affiliates really benefit from his new image gold and, more broadly, the “free-for-all” approach his administration is taking toward the crypto business?
I dig deeper into the Trump image coin and examine the gray area between involvement and abuse in bitcoin markets.
A joke gold offering’s” tokenomics,” which describes the predetermined number of units of its source, how that provide is distributed, and how much of it the inventor receives keeps, can be used to determine whether it is a fraud. The makers can sell for more money the higher the share of the source is allocated to them.
Creater currencies were originally intended for developers to fund their startups, according to media studies expert Lana Swartz. However, with meme coins, which generally don’t make any claims about building anything, they do exist to benefit their creators and, possibly, fund continued marketing of the coin.
The majority of Trump tokens are distributed to its creators on a three-year distribution plan, in contrast to Dogecoin, which adopted a” fair start” strategy, meaning that its creators didn’t give a percentage of the first coins to themselves before allowing others to trade it.
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 were created so that its creators could gradually sell off their substantial supply without significantly affecting its value. They can do it slowly rather than quickly lift the rug from under investors ‘ feet.
None of this is hidden because the Trump meme coin’s tokenomics are prominently displayed on the coin’s website.
Notably, the coin’s creators won’t start receiving any of the supply until March 2025. The amount of profit they can expect will be determined by future prices. At the time of this writing, the Trump meme coin was down roughly 60 % from its peak.
Who are these creators anyway? The various layers of limited liability companies behind the project are obscuring which individuals stand to gain, as detailed in fine print on the$ Trump meme website.
Presuming Trump is one of these creators, the president technically doesn’t have an allotment of the supply to cash out – not until March, at least. So, no, Trump didn’t make billions from the coin. However, he still has the potential to steal millions of dollars from unintentional investors.
Judging by the spike in crypto exchange downloads over the weekend of the Trump coin’s launch, it attracted many new, and likely novice, speculators. Coins like these, which can significantly devalue in a matter of hours, can be agonizing introductions to the world of investing.
This isn’t the first time Trump has tried to make a killing on crypto, either. Since 2022, he has already made millions off the sales of five nonfungible token launches, which are essentially digital trading cards.
Have fun!
The final words of Trump’s meme coin announcement on Truth Social on his social media platform Truth Social sum up how his administration will approach the crypto industry over the coming four years:” Have fun!”
Trump signed an executive order on January 23 that included a number of decrees intended to make the United States the” crypto capital of the world.”
Venture capitalist David Sacks has been appointed as the group tasked with reforming the stringent rules governing the crypto industry. Sacks has made adage about his personal crypto investments on his podcast, and he has invested in various crypto-focused businesses.
In a recent Fox Business interview, Sacks was asked if he thought Trump’s meme coin was a conflict of interest. He said no, suggesting that the coins should be thought of as” collectibles” akin to” a baseball card or a stamp”.
Notably, the$ Trump website also refers to the tokens as” cards” and “memes”, rather than coins. They may be used as tokens of pure amusement rather than as serious investment vehicles with hopes of profit as a result of this attempt to avoid legal trouble.
However, a number of Congressmembers have already requested an investigation into the Trump meme.
One thing is unmistakable no matter how you define Trump: The coin’s structure has been set up to smuggle money from retail investors for at least the next three years. As long as the value of it is maintained, regular speculators can still make money off of it. That’s basically a gamble.
Trump could benefit enormously from a looser regulatory framework as he begins to accumulate a stockpile of various cryptocurrencies through his other venture, World Liberty Financial.
Fun indeed.
Maximilian Brichta is doctoral student of communication, University of Southern California
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.