Trump launches surprise token ahead of inauguration
Donald Trump didn’t wait until his Monday inauguration as the 47th President of the United States to make headlines. Late Friday night, he launched a new cryptocurrency called “TRUMP.” The coin started at $1.50 and shot up to $74 by Sunday, an incredible jump in just two days.
The coin was released three days before Trump’s inauguration and skyrocketed 4,000% within its first four hours. That’s more than the S&P 500’s total gains over the past 30 years — all in just a few hours.
The $TRUMP token is built on the Solana blockchain. There’s a total supply of 1 billion coins, but only 200 million are currently available, which is 20% of the total. The remaining 80% is owned by two companies, CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, both created in Delaware this month. These companies can’t sell all their coins at once because of a three-year unlocking schedule, which means their tokens will slowly enter the market over time.
Right now, the market value of the available tokens is $14 billion. If all 1 billion coins were released, the total value would be over $61 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com. To compare, that makes TRUMP coin more valuable as companies like Hershey’s, Reddit, and Kellogg’s, Zoom or Warner Bros. Discovery.
Trump launched the cryptocurrency during a fancy, invite-only event for the crypto world in Washington, D.C. Guests included big names from finance, Snoop Dogg, and Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent.
Even though Trump used to criticize cryptocurrency, he changed his tone in 2024 at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville. He promised that America would become “the crypto capital of the planet” when he returned to the White House.
At first, some people thought Trump’s social media account was hacked or that the coin was a scam. But those doubts didn’t stop the coin’s wild rise in value. The coin’s website notes that $TRUMP isn’t meant to be an “investment” or “security,” but fans of both Trump and crypto started buying it right away.