Source : THE AGE NEWS
Donald Trump’s marketing and merchandising prowess reached nosebleed heights with the creation of his own digital meme coin, $Trump — a product best described as what you would get if you crossed meme shares with cryptocurrency and added Trump’s DNA.
The creation of the marketable coin could certainly fall under the category of a get-rich scheme, but mainly for Trump.
Meme coins have historically been vessels for “pump and dump” speculative buying, and the polar opposite to both conservative or ethical investing.
Donald Trump owns most of his meme coins. Credit: AP
But Trump’s brand of leadership has been anything but conventional, so the ethics of merchandising his winning the US presidency for profit won’t be as eyebrow-raising as it should be.
In the pre-Tump era, it would be unthinkable for a US President to post a message advertising: “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW.”
This virtual token, which launched on Friday night US time, has a potential on-paper value of as much as $US49 billion, depending on how you measure it. That theoretical value is based purely on what speculators have been prepared to pay for the Trump meme coins issued so far, plus other $Trumps that have not yet been issued.
The vast majority of these Trump meme coins are owned by Trump and his associated businesses. His wife followed suit soon after by launching her own digital coin, $Melania.
It gives the term “creating money out of thin air” a new meaning, and for investors who have been scrambling to buy $Trumps, it takes speculative investment to a new head-exploding level.
The coin didn’t exist a week ago, has no intrinsic value and can’t be used for anything. It has no physical asset underlying it and its theoretical value would disappear in a heartbeat.
Meme coins, a type of digital asset, are not new. There are more than 3700 out there, according to CoinMarketCap – with some amusing names that reflect the fact that they have traditionally been considered a joke. Among the top-performing meme coins are HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu, Cat Girl, Jesus Coin, Pooh, Doge Eat Doge and Elon.
The art for Mr Trump’s token features an illustration of the incoming US president with his first in the air – a reference to his response in the aftermath of an attempt on his life during a campaign rally last year.
“Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol $TRUMP and the associated artwork, and are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type,” small print on the project’s website states.
But major crypto exchanges have announced they intend to list the $Trump tokens.
Trump was once a crypto sceptic but has morphed into a massive supporter, declaring his aim to have the US dominate the crypto space. In his first term, he ridiculed Bitcoin and its peers as “not money”, “based on thin air” and something that “can facilitate unlawful behaviour, including drug trade and other illegal activity”, and even called it a “scam” after he left office.
That was until Trump discovered the ability to make money from crypto.
The turning point was reportedly when Trump began selling non-fungible tokens (another type of digital asset) depicting himself as a superhero in December 2022, a month after he declared his intention to run for president again. He raised $US8.9 million in the process, which apparently proved to him that crypto can be beneficial.
The Trump family meme coin blitz comes after David Sacks, named crypto and artificial intelligence czar by Trump, declared a new age of US crypto innovation.
“The reign of terror against crypto is over, and the beginning of innovation in America for crypto has just begun,” Sacks said, speaking on Friday at the so-called crypto ball event, intended to drive support for Trump among the crypto community and demonstrate its value to the incoming administration.
The reign of terror for the industry may be over but for $Trump investors, the road to riches may get rocky when 1 billion more $Trump tokens are released over the next three years.
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