Speak about a Friday night time shock. President-elect Donald Trump’s social media accounts shared what seems to be an official Solana meme coin known as TRUMP, simply three days earlier than he is set to be sworn in for his second time period within the White Home.
Degen merchants purchased in instantly, producing tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars}’ price of buying and selling quantity as on-chain sleuths and safety specialists hunted for crimson flags. However with Trump’s X and Reality Social posts nonetheless reside after greater than an hour, and a few preliminary crimson flags cleared upon nearer inspection, it seems that this can be a authentic Trump meme coin launch.
“My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to have fun all the things we stand for: WINNING! Be a part of my very particular Trump Neighborhood. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW,” Trump’s official X account posted.
The launch was instantly met with pleasure, confusion, and loads of skepticism. That is as a result of the challenge had all of the acquainted hallmarks of many superstar meme coin scams which have launched during the last yr, with a public determine’s social media account hijacked to advertise a pump-and-dump rip-off.
The Reality Social submit went out first, however as soon as the X submit adopted on his official account, considerations started to subside. Additionally, the coin has largely solely pumped thus far, with no dump as of this writing.
On-chain sleuths pointed to potential crimson flags, together with the obvious undeniable fact that the challenge was seeded with thousands and thousands of {dollars} of funds from Binance and Gate—two exchanges that do not serve U.S. clients. However another obvious considerations diminished with additional sleuthing, to not point out with time as Trump’s social posts remained on-line.
The coin’s official web site appears just like these used to promote and promote his previous NFT collections, and is credited to CIC Digital, the identical official Trump licensee behind the NFTs. The meme coin web site was “deployed nearly identically to his earlier NFT web site,” famous pseudonymous blockchain engineer cygaar tweeted, following preliminary suspicions.
“Both that is the best cyber heist of all time, or that is authentic,” he added.
Meme coin merchants are shopping for the coin in droves, pushing it to a value of $7.31 as of this writing. DexScreener lists a market cap of $7.1 billion, which might make it a high 30 cryptocurrency if correct—although there is a caveat.
Out of 1 billion cash, the web site notes that 80% are locked and can progressively be unlocked over the course of three years. As such, the circulating provide would solely be 200 million tokens, placing the market cap nearer to $1.5 billion as of this writing. There’s been about $680 million price of buying and selling quantity thus far.
Trump ran on a pro-crypto platform, and past his earlier NFT collections that launched between 2022 and 2024, Trump has additionally backed a decentralized finance platform known as World Liberty Monetary.
He is anticipated to subject a day-one government order concerning cryptocurrency that could possibly be the primary of many, as Decrypt reported this week, with Trump believed to be readying directives that would reshape the American crypto panorama for builders and buyers alike.
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