TrumpCoin Enriches Chinese, Sparks Division in US Crypto Community

On the eve of the inauguration of the President of the United States, Trump pulled off a major stunt for the American people and the world. In the final two days before the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution took effect for himself, the Trump family siphoned off billions of dollars from the crypto world through a MEME coin.

The "U.S. President Leads Coin Launch" was truly an unprecedented event, and the extent of the $TRUMP token's circulation and wealth creation effect was unparalleled. In just one weekend, its daily trading volume on the Binance platform surpassed one hundred billion dollars, even briefly surpassing BTC. From Wall Street's financial institutions to the elders on the Bund, the whole world was inquiring about how to join this feast.

Interestingly, this true-blue American "MEME Coin" unexpectedly made Chinese crypto enthusiasts one of the largest beneficiary groups. Since the token was issued during the night in the Eastern U.S. time zone, most American citizens did not seize the trading opportunity immediately. According to on-chain data and social media information, over half of the addresses that profited over a million dollars were from the Chinese community. At the same time, due to legal controversies and disagreements, Trump's "playful move" also sparked serious divisions within the crypto community.

Coin Launch Timeline Review

On January 18, the incoming U.S. President, Trump, announced on his social media account the launch of his personal Meme coin $TRUMP, where users could obtain the Meme token by visiting the official website. The website stated that TRUMP was the only "Official Trump Meme Coin."

The gettrumpmemes website indicated that 80% of the TRUMP coin's supply was held by entities affiliated with the Trump Group, CIC Digital, and CIC-owned entity Fight Fight Fight LLC. The website also stated that the initial supply of TRUMP coins on the first day was 2 billion, with an estimated total supply of 10 billion over three years, distributed gradually over three years. CIC Digital and its affiliates would receive income generated from TRUMP transactions, locked up for 3-12 months, and unlocked over the next 24 months.

Initially, the market had doubts about this news, speculating that Trump's account might have been hacked. However, hours later, the post remained unaltered and without denial, and the TRUMP coin surged rapidly. Twelve hours after the token was launched, its trading price reached around $30, with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $300 billion. By 8 p.m. on January 19, Beijing time, according to CoinMarketCap data, the price of the TRUMP coin had risen to a peak of $85.2 within a day and a half of its launch, with a total circulating market cap of $852 billion. Trump's net worth soared by $68.16 billion (approximately 4.9893 trillion RMB), over ten times higher than before the coin launch. On the 19th, Binance, Coinbase, and OKX also announced the listing of TRUMP (OFFICIAL TRUMP) for spot trading. Aside from Trump and sol, which was used to purchase Trump, all other tokens experienced a sharp decline, with ETH dropping to a low of $3,127, down 12% from the early hours of the 18th. Other meme tokens, AI agent tokens, etc., all experienced varying degrees of decline.

Image Source: CoinMarketCap

As $Trump was reaching the peak of his popularity and experiencing extreme FOMO, Trump's wife, Melania, also took advantage of the situation by launching her own cryptocurrency on the Solana blockchain, called MELANIA. On the 20th, Melania posted on social media, stating, "Melania Official Meme is live," along with a purchase link.

The Trump family's coin launch seemed to strike the market like a follow-the-leader move. While MELANIA surged to a market value of $120 amid the FOMO sentiment, all other coins experienced a sharp decline. TRUMP's market value plummeted from $75 billion to $35 billion, SOL dropped from $176 to $235, and Bitcoin saw a 6% drop in a short period. The crypto community angrily criticized the Trump family for treating cryptocurrency as their family's "ATM," blurring the line between governmental role and commercial interests. Many media outlets questioned the Trump family's coin issuance behavior and opposed and criticized this fundraising activity.

Riding the Hype While Holding the Bag: The Wealthy Asian Crypto Trader vs. the American Retail Investor Buying for Faith

Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times in China, commented on Trump's coin launch, stating, "Capitalism! It turns out the presidency can be monetized this way! Mr. Trump has truly broadened my horizons as someone living in a socialist country." But perhaps what surprised this former professional media person even more was that, apart from the "pump and dump," the ones who profited the most from this presidential coin issuance were the Asian on-chain traders.

The chart below shows the TRUMP price trend based on US Eastern Time, with the coin's launch on Friday, January 17th at 9 p.m. From the chart, it can be observed that the significant price surges on January 18th and 19th mainly occurred during the Asian trading hours.

New York Time TRUMP Price Trend Chart

On January 18th, just one hour after the TRUMP coin launch and as its market cap crossed the $100 million mark, the community compiled a list of the top profit-taking addresses for TRUMP. It was found that 10 Chinese Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) made profits exceeding $1 million each.

Image Source: ChainNews

When TRUMP's market cap rose to $15 billion, just 4 hours after the coin was launched, Chinese KOL 0xSun announced his TRUMP PnL on X, with a total cost of 3010 SOL and a profit of $10 million. A day later, 0xSun transferred TRUMP to a CEX and last updated his PnL, showing a profit of $27.5 million.

"It's been 4 hours, but also 3 years since I entered the circle and started living on the chain, sitting still for over 10 hours a day on average," 0xSun wrote in a tweet. As TRUMP's market cap soared past $30 billion, in the Chinese community, apart from astonishment and regret for not getting in at the bottom, some were also reflecting on why they missed this opportunity. Xinfini founder Christian provided an answer, stating that without a certain amount of initial capital and going all in at the first opportunity on the Solana chain, one could not achieve great results with TRUMP.

In contrast, the performance of U.S. retail investors appeared more passive. The number of open profit-taking positions in the English-speaking community on Trump's coin issuance was much lower, with even top meme KOL Ansem exiting at a loss.

The address marked as Ansem made a purchase on the morning of January 19th Beijing time, when TRUMP's market cap had already exceeded $30 billion. At that time, the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Kraken had just launched TRUMP spot trading. On January 20th, as Robinhood announced support for TRUMP, Ansem further bought TRUMP, and on January 21st, Ansem sold all TRUMP, with a total loss kept within $80,000.

U.S. YouTuber voidzilla directly criticized in a video, saying, "This behavior is unprecedented in terms of stupidity and fraud, using the days leading up to the presidential inauguration to promote a hype project. Such a scam is simply mind-boggling. With only two days left until the inauguration, he should have been busy writing his inaugural speech instead of launching a meme coin. At a crucial moment in the presidential election, using power to hype like this not only breaks historical records but also blatantly tramples on all moral boundaries."

However, the President's brand was still irresistibly attractive to retail investors. Just on January 18, Moonshot added approximately 400,000 new users. Twitter was filled with posts about how to use Moonshot to purchase TRUMP, with some users even complaining about its complexity. In one discussion about the purchasing process, someone recommended using the Phantom wallet, to which another user replied, "I just wanted to deposit some cash or dollars, but it forces me to buy SOL, Bitcoin, or something like that."

Additionally, due to the inability of U.S. banks to process large deposits or fund transfers over the weekend, further restricting American investors' profits in TRUMP, the delayed fund flow caused U.S. retail investors to miss a crucial entry window, becoming liquidity providers in the later stages of the price surge.

On one hand, Asia-based traders who are always on-chain found the asset at the right time and heavily entered the market. On the other hand, the U.S. trading group had compliant channels for purchasing Moonshot combined with adoration for their national leader, causing them to overlook early chips and be willing to serve as exit liquidity for the President and whales.

How Much Money Did the Trump Family Make from the Cryptocurrency Market?

After Trump's wife, Melania, released a token under her name, the price of $Trump also plummeted from $78 to $35. With the news of $Trump being listed on RobinHOOD, the price rose again. The coordinated news and market-making activities in recent days make one sigh at the terrifying conspiracy of capital behind the scenes, quietly utilizing every exit liquidity to the fullest. This is not the first time the Trump team has made money in the blockchain field, but it is the most sensational. So, how much money did the Trump team make in the cryptocurrency field.

Cryptocurrency Political Donations

As the first president to accept cryptocurrency political donations, he unprecedentedly accepted not only BTC on his official website but also mainstream altcoins like ETH and SOL, as well as meme coins like Dogecoin. In the end, the value of cryptocurrency received exceeded $4 million, while his industry supporters in the crypto field also received millions in traditional investments.

Raking in $20 Million in NFTs was Just a Small Start

In December 2022, Trump announced the launch of the first set of Trump-themed NFTs. These trading cards featured Trump playing various roles, with a total of 45,000 cards priced at $99 each. Within 24 hours, the NFTs sold out, directly bringing Trump $4.5 million. This also allowed the then non-pro-cryptocurrency Trump to taste success. Similar products were released continuously by the Trump team on Polygon, including four series "one of which is a rare special edition," as well as a series on Bitcoin. The sale of nearly 200,000 Trump trading card NFTs and royalties brought the Trump team over $20 million in revenue.

The key figure behind the scenes of this series is CIC Digital LLC, a company founded by former President Trump's lawyer John Marion and former advisor Nick Luna in 2021. The issuer of the "Trump Digital Trading Cards" NFT INT LLC stated on its website that it is an independent entity and that "NFT INT LLC" does not belong to, is not managed by, or under the control of Donald J. Trump. Instead, it obtained authorization to use Trump's name and likeness by purchasing it from CIC Digital LLC to create and sell this NFT series. However, upon further investigation of NFT INT LLC, their website lists a contact address at a UPS store in Park City, Utah, USA. However, the registered address is in Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming, also known as the "American Little Cayman Islands," located approximately 480 kilometers away from Park City, indicating that this company is likely one of the many ghost companies.

《Trump's NFT 10x in 2 days, was the former president the issuer himself?》

Targeted Hunt for DeFi Newbies, $300M Not Enough to Fill the Gap

World Liberty Fi was jointly launched by former President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump. Donald Trump Jr. emphasized that this is not just a meme coin but a project dedicated to providing top-notch decentralized financial and banking tools while strictly adhering to relevant regulations to ensure user safety. Interestingly, with the buzz surrounding Trump's $Trump Memecoin, the Trump family's DeFi project, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), sold out its 20 billion tokens in its public sale this morning at a price of $0.015 per token, raising a total of $300 million. Among the participants was Justin Sun, the owner of the well-known Tron chain, who contributed $30 million and announced an additional $45 million investment in the name of Tron DAO.

As the initially allocated 20% of the public sale was sold out, WLFI generously opened up an additional 5% allocation for the community to purchase. If this additional allocation is also filled, the on-chain address holding the $300 million could receive an additional $75 million.

It is worth noting that WLFI, in the two days leading up to the $Trump launch, suddenly reduced its accumulation of nearly 17,000 Ethereum held in the address for months to 1,200 Ethereum "transferred to Coinbase or another address." This was followed by a significant depletion of on-chain assets during the $Trump vampire attack, as many ETH whales switched to Solana. Starting on the 19th, multiple purchases of Ethereum were made, and the current holdings have exceeded 42,000 Ethereum, executing a successful swing trade that turned Ethereum's losses into gains. This action also caused Ethereum to surpass one-third of the total assets held in that address.

The Ultimate Weapon, an unprecedented Crypto large-scale consolidation event

This is probably the chart you've seen the most in recent days: the US President launching a Memecoin. While it seemed impossible, the idea came to life with Trump, where the Trump family, having worked hard for three generations, finally amassed a family fortune of $4 billion. After releasing the Memecoin, the market capitalization reached $80 billion within two days, surpassing over a hundred years of struggle with just two days of global frenzy. At its peak, $Trump reached a market cap of $800 billion. Considering 20% of circulating supply, the actual market cap was $160 billion, but now it has dwindled to $60 billion. Additionally, the $10 billion of liquidity sucked in the market mostly vanished. Regardless of the market's reaction to the US President's influence, the impact of a single token on a market averaging $1 to $2 trillion is significant.

The entity responsible for the $Trump issuance is a company under the Trump family's umbrella, apart from the aforementioned Trump CIC Digital LLC, mainly known as Fight Fight Fight LLC. These two companies held 80% of the $Trump token allocation. While the total vesting period spans three years, the unlocking will occur in six phases, with the majority (40%) beginning to unlock in the third month. Although it is unknown how much insider traders benefited besides this 80%, based on the listing from Coinbase to Robinhood and the announcement by Moonshot that direct deposits from Robinhood are accepted, $Trump is likely to use the support of Trump's followers, funds from the traditional stock market, and plenty of newbies to sustain its hype and market cap for a considerable time. Thus, if 4% of the chips unlock after three months

Even if the market value is now half, it can still achieve a liquidity exit of tens of billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the token of Trump's wife, the First Lady of the United States, $MELANIA, is similar to the token issued by Trump himself in that it is "unrelated" to Trump. The token is issued by MKT World, LLC, and information found in online records shows that Melania's position at the company is both a member and a manager. The company's address at 3505 SUMMIT BLVD. WEST PALM BEACH, FL 33406 is very close to the Trump family's residence in Florida.

The tokenomics of $MELANIA are somewhat different from $TRUMP. Team share 35%, treasury 20%, community 20%, public issuance 15%, liquidity 10%. The biggest difference lies in the token unlock rules, where Trump's team share requires a 3-year lockup, but Melania's team only needs to lock up for 30 days. Starting from day 30, the team share will unlock 10% first, followed by a gradual linear unlock from months 2-13 until the end of the 13th month. This short-term and unclear chip allocation has caused the token's market value to plummet rapidly from $15 billion all the way down by 33 billion, almost only 20% of the peak. Such hasty token unlock rules and rapid declines resemble a meme coin. It inevitably raises speculation as to whether this is just a means for $Trump to shake out weak hands.

Regardless, the Trump team had retained some rationality in their accumulation until a few days ago. However, Trump's recent actions have left people stunned. Regardless of the numerous disclaimers or exploitation of legal loopholes, it is an undeniable fact that before taking office as the President of the United States to "Make America Great Again," he first aimed to "Make Crime Great Again."

Pro-China Cryptocurrency Group Starts a Fight, Is the "Trump Crypto Faction" Also Divided?

In fact, not everyone supports Trump's direct coin issuance behavior. Previously, the Trump team's NFT issuance to earn $20 million was considered relatively "mild," and many community members had not yet reacted.

However, today's nature is completely different. In order to circumvent presidential investment restrictions, on the eve of taking office in "Goose City," the Trump couple directly utilized coin issuance, locking up coins, and early high-point buy-in sell-off, allowing the entire interest group behind them to achieve "risk-free profits" at the fastest speed.

There can be many harvesters in the crypto world, but the one who cannot be is the President. Many have expressed strong concerns about this.

VC investor Nick Tomaino wrote on Platform X: "Trump holds 80% of Trump Coin and scheduled the issuance just a few days before the inauguration ceremony. This is undoubtedly a predatory act, and many people may be harmed as a result."

Anthony Scaramucci, a banker who briefly served as White House Communications Director during Trump's last term (fired after 10 days), also criticized on Platform X: "Trump meme coins are harmful to the cryptocurrency industry, and we cannot deceive ourselves."

Image Source Community

More embarrassingly for the crypto world, initially, we made one political donation after another, we chanted "Fire Gary Gensler," we longed for a pro-crypto industry president, we hoped the crypto industry would receive more attention and liquidity.

Has it been achieved? Yes, it has. According to community and exchange platform staff, a well-known exchange platform usually had only a few hundred registered users and $700,000 in OTC transaction volume. However, on January 20, the number of registered users reached 120,000, and the OTC volume also reached $100 million. And the number of new user registrations on a top-tier exchange platform in three days also exceeded several million.

But the way it was achieved was not by treating Bitcoin as a U.S. national strategic reserve, not by approving a new batch of mainstream currencies through an ETF, not by enacting new crypto laws, but by launching meme coins that dried up most of the crypto world's liquidity.

Image Source: Community WeChat

It is neither dignified nor ethical. Many in the crypto community who once supported Trump have now openly expressed their opposition.

"What he did is absolutely absurd." Nic Carter, founding partner of the cryptocurrency investment firm Castle Island Ventures, once publicly admitted to being a Trump supporter, but he still said, "Launching a meme coin to explore this is just plain stupid."

Even during the election period, the crypto-friendly media outlet Bitcoin Magazine, which had previously been pro-Trump, publicly referred to TRUMP as a shitcoin on social media.

It is important to note that Trump was marketed as the "First Bitcoin President of the United States," and Bitcoin Magazine played a significant role in this. At the official Bitcoin 2024 conference hosted by the magazine, Trump took the stage to give a speech and announced the launch of a Bitcoin strategic reserve to ensure the U.S. becomes the world's crypto hub and a Bitcoin superpower. He also planned to dismiss the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Trump's crypto-friendly policies all began with this speech.

"In my view, this is nothing but a pump-and-dump, self-enrichment scam, an unethical act, and the investors involved (should I say 'fans') are extremely foolish." However, the authors of Bitcoin Magazine are now bluntly criticizing this. Related reading: "Bitcoin Magazine Criticizes $TRUMP: Trump Likes Cryptocurrency, as Long as It Can Be Used for Personal Gain"

The media's values are top-down, and although Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey was a Trump campaign advisor in the past, he is said to be among the pro-Trump crypto community members who tried to dissuade Trump from launching a coin.

He has repeatedly clarified on social media, "I have no association with Trump's memecoin, was not informed in advance, and have no financial interest," and "My advice and advocacy are all beneficial to Bitcoin and the nation."

As a cryptocurrency advisor during the election period, David Bailey's current position is more like a lubricant between Trump and the community. Even though he doesn't agree with Trump's coin issuance plan, he still tries to appease the community: "I am very grateful for everything Trump has done for Bitcoin and the entire industry and everything he is going to do," "Events such as Ross's release will be realized," "I will continue to do my best to support the President and his family's acceptance of Bitcoin and provide honest advice when needed"...

This also means that now the cryptos around Trump have split into two factions in terms of ideology.

One faction is Bitcoin Magazine, while the other faction opposite to Bitcoin Magazine is commonly referred to as the "Crypto Committee," whose members are personally appointed by Trump.

The chairman of the Crypto Committee is David Sacks, known as one of the founders of PayPal, who later became famous by creating Yammer and selling it to Microsoft for $1.2 billion. In the crypto circle, David Sacks' most important identity is as an investor in the crypto venture capital firm Multicoin and a Solana maximalist.

"One of the dumbest attacks against me this year is to say that I dumped SOL tokens on retail. If that were true, they should be rolling in money now. Congratulations to all SOL holders." Even when FTX blew up, Sacks never sold SOL.

Since $TRUMP is deployed on the Solana chain and when Trump issued $TRUMP coins, David Sacks has always remained silent on these "zero-sum meme coins." Therefore, many people believe that the chairman of the Crypto Committee was involved.

Another piece of evidence is that David Sacks has a "criminal record." In March 2024, David Sacks once posted about a memecoin named $Sacks after his own name.

Although when people started buying, he tweeted nine times telling them not to buy, this has already confirmed the evidence that he "once issued a coin," which is exactly the same as the $TRUMP coin issuance method. (According to community feedback, David Sacks recently deleted his posts about $Sacks.)

Image Source Community

This has made many people start to dislike David Sacks, feeling that his approach is too hasty and overly eager to profit through this aggressive means. Even if Sacks did not directly participate, as the chair of the Crypto Council, he should still be held responsible for this incident. There are even rumors that some have suggested that the entire leadership of David Sacks' Crypto Council be replaced with a new team.

According to a Washington cryptocurrency influencer who preferred to remain anonymous, almost everyone in the crypto field is currently vying for a seat on this council. Many crypto giants like a16z, Coinbase, Paradigm, Ripple, Kraken, and Circle are very interested in this, seeking to have a say in reforming U.S. crypto policy.

After all, the ordinary member seats on this Crypto Council are all very coveted positions, with David Sacks' words and actions as the council chair being crucial.

This is not the first time the Trump team has shown an unstable state. During the previous presidential term, there was a great deal of internal factional struggle and turnover within the Trump administration, with resignations being commonplace.

In addition to the competition for seats on the Crypto Council, in this term, the Trump team's internal political risk is also evident in other aspects.

Although not naming names, Messari founder Ryan Selkis tweeted urging Trump to dismiss the individuals behind the $MELANIA project. "The project team lacks expertise, may cause significant economic and reputational damage, and the project decisions do not adequately consider Trump's interests." Selkis pointed out the issues with $MELANIA.

Compared to the $TRUMP coin, the launch of Melania Trump's $MELANIA was indeed more hasty. The front-end code is incomplete, the images were not compressed, the website was only built the day before the project's launch, and the legal text is also not precise. Many netizens speculate that $MELANIA and $TRUMP have many differences in their approaches, possibly not operated by the same team.

「If my source is not mistaken, $TRUMP was propelled by the Crypto Tsar, while $MELANIA was created by the worldliberty team. However, it can be assured that these two coins were not created by the same team.」 More than one community member revealed.

The Erosion of Trust, How Long Does It Take?

TRUMP emerged during the time when Trump was about to take office, originally a shocking event that stunned the world and exhilarated the cryptocurrency community. We have always hoped that cryptocurrency could demonstrate a more compliant, stable, and secure image to the world, and under such aspirations, $TRUMP carried too many expectations of the cryptocurrency community—it emerged from the hands of the soon-to-be U.S. president, and who could not imagine that this would be the beginning of the new U.S. government further embracing cryptocurrency? How much new attention could this beginning attract to cryptocurrency with a historical positive image?

TRUMP emerged from Trump's hand, but unfortunately, it did not come from the hand of the "U.S. President" Trump, but from the hand of the "Businessman" Trump. The "U.S. President" Trump had the ability to issue and promote $TRUMP and even the entire cryptocurrency market with higher ethical standards and more comprehensive legal compliance standards, but the "Businessman" Trump displayed blatant greed and disregard for ethics, treating the cryptocurrency market as a cash cow for his own influence, eagerly issuing asset after asset to seize more benefits.

In the end, Trump only mentioned the cryptocurrency industry for votes. Did he really consider how to better promote the industry's development? What we have seen is a "big shot" who is completely self-centered, disregards basic industry rules and ethics, and considers himself superior to the entire cryptocurrency market. In Trump's eyes, the cryptocurrency market may not be much different from setting up a stall in front of his own house. As long as someone is willing to pay for his influence, he might think, what's wrong with his actions, and what's not right?

Melania's issuance of coins has become a helpless self-mockery within the cryptocurrency community—Trump and his family are mocking how foolish our unrealistic expectations are.

From a speculator's perspective, this is certainly a speculative heyday, with no better narrative and sense of predestination. But is it really good for the industry?

What Trump will lose is not only the trust of the cryptocurrency community in him but also the moral integrity and responsibility of a U.S. president.