TRUMP memecoin riches have spurred billions of dollars for newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump, an amount he described as “peanuts” compared to big companies in his first address for the token since its launch.
“I don’t know much about it other than when I launched it. I heard it was successful,” Trump said at a news conference Tuesday when asked by a reporter. “Where is it today? More billions?
“It’s peanuts for these guys,” he added, referring to the net worth of other businessmen in the space, which included SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Oracle’s Larry Ellison.
Token prices have zoomed by 25% over the past 24 hours, beating gains in bitcoin (BTC) and other majors to reverse losses from earlier in the week. It has a market cap of $8 billion as of Wednesday morning, up nearly 900% since going live.
Trump also unveiled a $500 billion joint venture called Stargate at the event, which aims to build data centers in Texas and will invest in AI infrastructure.
Meanwhile, some see TRUMP as a bet on the Republican’s popularity and policies during his term, with ripple effects on how it could shape the Web3 and memecoin markets.
“Longer term, TRUMP coin can serve as a barometer of public sentiment toward Trump’s presidency,” Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands told CoinDesk in a message. “Culture memes and tokens are essentially a highly variable public polymarket of culture and zeitgeist, and we’ve seen this play out accordingly.”
“(But) If the initiative is seen as a money grab with no further commitment, we may well see a crypto-cooling for meme tokens, potentially draining attention and liquidity out of the meme space. How the TRUMP token is handled will likely have a ripple effect on trust and reputation for the entire crypto and Web3 industry,” Siu added.
