The crypto project associated with the President of the United States of Donald Trump, World Liberty Financial (WLF), has raised $ 1bn in token sales, while the new Trump meme coin also rose to more than $ 10bn in market value when Trump took his second term. .
WLF made the announcement on Monday, the day Trump was sworn in as president.
The surge in crypto companies associated with Trump comes as he promises to usher in a “golden age” for cryptocurrencies, in stark contrast to company evaluation established under the leadership of former President Joe Biden.
The WLF, promoted and created by Trump, his sons and Trump's special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was launched two months before the US election.
The new Trump meme currency, called $TRUMP, was launched on Friday night during the first Crypto Ball in Washington, DC, along with the inauguration festivities. The currency rose on Monday from $10 on Saturday morning to $74.59 before giving its biggest rally yet.
The new currency boosted Trump's cryptocurrency interests over WLF.
Melania Trump launched her own currency, $MELANIA, on Sunday. His meeting raised his market capitalization to more than $1bn.
Four out of five of Trump's financial records are owned by CIC Digital, which is associated with Trump's business, and another organization called Fight, Fight, Fight, according to its website. It says the money is “an expression of support for, and participation in, the ideas and beliefs that carry the '$TRUMP' symbol” and is not a currency or security.
The launch of the WLF just two months before the US election in November raised concerns about ethics and conflicts of interest. The launch of the meme coin on Friday night also raised red flags, even among those in the cryptocurrency industry.
“Despite trying to dismiss this as another Trump show, the introduction of the Trump token opens up a Pandora's box of ethical and legal questions,” said Justin D'Anethan, an independent crypto analyst in Hong Kong.
Cryptocurrency attorney Preston Byrne published a blog post on Sunday predicting a civil lawsuit against the currency.
“Somebody's going to lose money, some lawyer is going to come up with an idea and a file,” Byrne said. “The implementation of memecoin, from a political point of view, is a huge unforced error.”
Byrne declined to comment further.
'Crypto President'
The Trump Organization said this month that the president will hand over day-to-day management of his residence, hotel, golf course, media and passports to his children when he enters the White House.
As of 2:45pm EST (19:45 GMT), Trump's coin was trading at $42.20, giving it a market cap of about $8.5bn, according to CoinMarketCap.
Twenty-four-hour trading volume was about $40bn, CoinMarketCap data showed.
WLF sold about 22 billion tokens on Monday, according to the company's website, beating its original goals.
This includes a total of $75m from Tron founder Justin Sun, who was charged with crypto-related fraud and security breaches during the Biden administration.
The excitement over the so-called meme coins helped gather many in cryptocurrency prices as traders and investors grew in the hope that Trump will keep his promise to be “crypto president” by loosening the rules and encouraging the ownership of digital assets.
Several important groups in the Trump administration and its circles are connected to the crypto industry.
Bitcoin hit $104,031 on opening day and is up nearly 7 percent so far this month.
Trump and Melania cryptocurrencies were created on the Solana blockchain, which CoinMarketCap ranks as the third largest blockchain network.
Solana's coin price rose again over the weekend, hitting $294.33 on Sunday.
“The cryptocurrency market has gained additional popularity in recent hours due to the launch of TRUMP and MELANIA cryptocurrencies shortly before the inauguration,” said Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Conotoxia Ltd, in a statement.
Interrupting the lines
Peter Schiff, economist and global analyst at Euro Pacific Asset Management, highlighted the jump in the value of $TRUMP and called it the new digital gold, on social media.
Trump's net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $6.7bn. This does not include the value, even on paper, of the $TRUMP fund or the income from the WLF.
The prospect of looser regulations surrounding crypto policy has caught the interest of the industry and sparked a rally in Bitcoin following Trump's victory in November.
The sharp increase in the cost of the new currency raised concerns among some analysts.
“Meme cryptocurrencies, like these, can be very volatile and we often see them as speculative,” said Drozdz at Conotoxia.
Trump's currency represents the fusion of the financial world to the political sphere, and “blurs the lines between power, profit and influence”, D'Anethan, a crypto expert in Hong Kong, said.
“Should noble people, especially those with such an interest in politics, adopt these views in speculative markets?” That's a question regulators can't ignore,” he said.
Websites for both Trump and Melania Trump's money avoid referring to them as cryptocurrencies, instead using the term “fungible crypto assets” in their FAQs.
On Sunday, Donald Trump Jr wrote on X that the $TRUMP coin is “the hottest digital currency in the world” and that the WLF will be “the future of finance”.
“We're just getting started,” he said.