To hold or not to hold. Is $TRUMP coin here to stay?

It’s no secret that president Donald Trump is a big supporter of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. Initially a huge crypto sceptic, he then became one of many people dreaming of making the USA the crypto capital of the world.

‘If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA,’ he stated during the election period in 2024.

What made him change his mind? Like any savvy businessman, Trump recognized the real potential of this sector, and his shift from scepticism to support was driven by a combination of political, strategic and financial factors.

He saw an opportunity to reverse the SEC crackdowns of the Biden era (e.g. on Coinbase and Binance), portraying the Democrats as stifling innovation and scaring off capital. Thus, he could present himself as a progressive candidate who supports technology and innovation.

Moreover, crypto is the perfect way to expand the voter base and appeal directly to a younger, tech-savvy audience.

Financial reasons are also significant. Trump began viewing Bitcoin as he does gold: as a strategic hedge against inflation, especially amid concerns about the U.S. dollar.

All these reasons led him to create his official memecoin, $TRUMP (OFFICIAL TRUMP).

$TRUMP. The origins

On 18 and 19 January, Donald and Melania Trump announced the launch of their own meme coins: OFFICIAL TRUMP and Official Melania Meme.

These achieved significant success, reaching market capitalizations of approximately $14 billion and $2.2 billion respectively.

Initially, one billion tokens were minted, of which 200 million were released in the ICO. The remaining 800 million are held by Trump-affiliated entities under a multi-year vesting schedule.

Both memecoins were launched on the Solana network, causing the coin to rise above its previous high of $295 and resulting in disruptions to the blockchain and some of its services.

Many industry leaders, including Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, have stated that they now have to treat $TRUMP (OFFICIAL TRUMP) as a new kind of asset.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes added that memecoins are the most effective tool for attracting fans ever created.

It’s no surprise that the coin has become so popular. As of June 2025, the OFFICIAL TRUMP coin is the number one memecoin on the Solana network.

According to data from CoinMarketCap, the OFFICIAL TRUMP coin started trading at around $1.20 per token. However, Trump’s personal endorsement sent its value to the moon within several minutes.

The OFFICIAL TRUMP website touted it as the ‘only official Trump meme’, noting that Trump’s own company, CIC Digital LLC, would retain 80% of the token’s supply.

Days of glory: the price skyrockets and crypto fans are ecstatic!

Within two days of its launch, the price of the OFFICIAL TRUMP token skyrocketed from around $1 to almost $75 per coin. Consequently, the market cap also exceeded $14 billion. In January, the future president’s coin entered the top 20 cryptocurrencies by price.

However, the volatility was noticeable. Just 48 hours after the launch of the $TRUMP token, Melania Trump launched her own rival memecoin called $MELANIA. Many speculators rushed to sell, causing the price of OFFICIAL TRUMP to plunge by over 50% — from around $75 to $30. This reduced the market value by $7.5 billion.

Nevertheless, by the afternoon of 20 January (Inauguration Day), the token remained extremely valuable on paper, trading at around $60–$70, and its total market capitalization remained in the billions.

These events served as a litmus test for the volatility and speculative nature of the coin.

As the initial hype began to fade by the end of January, the value of trumpcoin started trending downward from those lofty highs. According to blockchain analytics cited by Reuters, the OFFICIAL TRUMP price had slumped by around two-thirds from its peak by early February.

Who invested in $TRUMP?

Contrary to popular belief, most $TRUMP holders were not the president’s voters. The coin’s holders come from a wide range of social and financial backgrounds, including seasoned crypto speculators and everyday Trump supporters with little investing experience.

“There were definitely a lot of influential people that has posted online about it that got me hyped up,” recalled a 47-year-old radio host from Arkansas who invested $32 in $TRUMP. “Then, when it tanked, I was like, ‘Whoa, what the hell?’” And that’s just one of many similar stories being told.

According to Chainalysis data, over 77% of $TRUMP holders earned less than $100, while ‘whales’ pocketed over $10 million each.

During the first two weeks of trading, at least 50 of the largest $TRUMP investors made a profit of over $10 million, while approximately 200,000 smaller investors made a loss.

By May 2025, 60 major investors had collectively made around $1.5 billion from OFFICIAL TRUMP, while approximately 600,000 smaller investors (mostly small-scale buyers) had incurred combined losses totalling almost $3.9 billion. This suggests that only early adopters and insiders made substantial gains.

Why does $TRUMP generate profits for only a few people?

The main reason for this imbalance lies in how OFFICIAL TRUMP was structured and sold. Trump-affiliated companies controlled most of the token supply and earned fees on every trade. Whenever $TRUMP was bought or sold on its initial exchange (the Meteora platform), the creators took a cut of the transaction fees.

By 30 January 2025, the project had already generated an estimated $86–$100 million in trading fee revenue for its creators. These revenues ultimately flow to entities tied to Trump.

According to an official disclosure on the OFFICIAL TRUMP website, CIC Digital (a Trump-owned company) and its partners receive the coin’s trading proceeds. Therefore, even as latecomers watched their $TRUMP tokens lose value, the Trump business was profiting from the trading frenzy in the form of fees.

President Trump’s son Eric Trump touted this as a success, calling $TRUMP “the hottest digital meme on Earth” and saying, “We are just getting started”.

Criticism of the $TRUMP coin in political circles

Donald Trump is the first president to launch and promote his own cryptocurrency. ‘This may represent the single worst conflict of interest in the modern history of the presidency,’ warned Norman Eisen, a former ethics adviser in the Obama administration.

However, the criticism came not only from Democrats, but from Republicans too. In early May, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced legislation seeking to ban federal officials (including presidents) from personally profiting from meme coins and similar crypto assets.

The White House defended the propriety of Trump’s crypto ventures. Spokespersons emphasized that the president’s assets were placed in a blind trust managed by his children, and argued that Trump’s business background was one of the reasons why he was elected.

Access to the VIP OFFICIAL TRUMP crypto dinner

One of the most sensational episodes in OFFICIAL TRUMP short history was an exclusive black-tie dinner hosted by Trump for the memecoin’s top holders, held on 22 May 2025 at Trump’s golf club in Sterling, Virginia. The 220 largest $TRUMP coin investors received an invitation to a special presidential dinner, and the top 25 holders were granted a private VIP reception — as well as a tour of the White House for the top investor.

Soon after the announcement, the price of $TRUMP temporarily jumped by 50%.

Investors spent an estimated total of $148 million on $TRUMP tokens to qualify for the dinner, with the top 25 holders accounting for around $111 million of that spending.

Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, founder of the Tron network, was also present at the dinner. He held an $18.5 million stake in $TRUMP and secured first place in the contest.

Despite lots of criticism, Trump cast the dinner as a forward-looking convergence of politics and technology.

$TRUMP price timeline and market performance

After crashing to the $20–$30 range in February, the coin never again approached its initial highs. It fell even lower in March and April, briefly rising on news of the VIP dinner contest (as some buyers speculated about another rally), and then continued to fall. By May 2025, $TRUMP was trading at around $11–$15 per coin.

This means that if an investor had bought $TRUMP at the initial price of around $1.20, it would have increased considerably by June (by almost tenfold).

However, if you were unfortunate enough to buy OFFICIAL TRUMP at its peak price of $70, you would have lost around 85% of your money by June.

Conclusion

World Liberty Financial (the newest Trump organization) is a cryptocurrency platform that was launched in September 2024. It provides crypto services, including lending and loans. It is one of Trump’s latest crypto projects and has already brought in $57.3 million.

In June 2025, the White House released Trump’s first financial disclosure report as president. It is suggested here that Trump’s crypto empire could be worth nearly $1 billion.

The sitting president has earned over $57 million from token sales on the World Liberty Financial platform, and also holds nearly 16 billion of its governance tokens.

However, the report does not include statistics about the $TRUMP token. Does this mean that it is not already in focus? Probably not, as its influence is too significant.

What is clear is that OFFICIAL TRUMP brief history has already had a significant impact, sparking debates on crypto speculation, political ethics and the power of internet-driven finance in modern society.

In the world of cryptocurrency, 2025 will be remembered as the year that a sitting U.S. president turned the memecoin phenomenon into a national talking point.

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