Donald Trump’s official memecoin has sparked fresh speculative activity in the Solana ecosystem almost overnight.
Several large-cap tokens based on Solana surged higher on Saturday, and the blockchain’s native SOL token set new highs above $275 as the US president-elect endorsed a new Solana-based TRUMP token on Friday night, calling it his “official” memecoin.
The selection of Solana as an issuing network boosted demand and sentiment for SOL tokens, CoinDesk reported on Saturday.
SOL trading volume has risen from Thursday’s $3 billion to over $26 billion over the past 24 hours, with Saturday’s move bringing weekly gains to over 46%.
That’s up nearly 3,000% since the three-year low of $9 in December 2022, following the implosion of crypto exchange FTX and prominent backer Sam Bankman-Fried, which dampened sentiment for Solana at the time.
Trump’s official memecoin was issued in the late US hours on Friday on the Solana blockchain by a team that includes ecosystem giants Jupiter and Meteora. The prices of Jupiter’s JUP tokens have increased by 30% in the last 24 hours.
The token launch was coordinated by CIC Digital LLC – a subsidiary of the Trump Organization, and the newly founded company Fight Fight Fight LLC, according to the BBC. The duo holds 80% of the tokens subject to a vesting period of over three years, and it is unclear how much money Trump stands to make from the venture.
TRUMP prices rose from a few cents to $14 in less than six hours amid widespread confusion over whether the token was actually backed by Trump or whether someone had hacked Trump’s account and issued a fake token.
It is trading above $44 in Asian afternoon hours on Sunday, snapping up listings on prominent exchanges Coinbase and Binance as well as several futures products. It has become the third largest memecoin by market capitalization behind dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) flipping pepecoin (PEPE).
