At 9.44pm ET Friday night, the Donald Trump twitter account tweeted an announcement for the release of an “official” $TRUMP memecoin.
It instantly rocketed and hasn’t really looked back – as I type this around noon Saturday it’s“paused” for a breather, at after running from zero to just under $30 billion market cap (fully diluted) in about 12 hours.
It peaked at $32B or so in the early hours.
My first reaction to it was that somehow Trump’s X account had been compromised and this was a very skillfully executed and timed pump-and-dump.
There was a subsequent announcement posted from Trump’s TruthSocial account – and other analysis concludes that the domain name and websites involved are of the same cohort as previous Trump NFT launches.
In other words, the $TRUMP memecoin is the real deal in that it was launched by the incoming president (or those within his circle) on the day SEC Gary Gensler left the office for the last time, and on the eve of Trump’s inauguration.
If you remember, Trump’s Word Liberty Financial launch in the closing weeks leading up to the election, also raised eyebrows (including mine).
That episode is still somewhat shrouded in mystery (the much vaunted “Trump launch” eventwas a rambling 45 minute campaign speech, which mentioned the word “crypto” once, and never spoke about WLFI) – although it that too, was announced via his X account, and then quietly, mostly, forgotten.
Last night was different, in that where $WLFI token hasn’t started trading yet – the $TRUMP token did, with only 10% float released to public and the rest held by insiders, and trade it did, unlike anything ever seen by anyone before:
Co-incidentally, I started working on a piece last night about how we’re in a crack-up boom, into the post-singularity and an alternate reality all at the same time.
Then this happens.
I have to admit I’m concerned about it, because I think the optics are bad, the cap table is garbage:
According to some observers, Trump has already pulled $500 million out from this (basically the dump part of “Pump and Dump”).
Many are welcoming this as auguring well for the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve which could be announced as soon as this coming week.
I was already bracing for disappointment there – with crypto sh*tcoiners circling the like vultures (i.e. Trump met with Ripple execs last week), we really don’t know what will be in such a reserve, especially if it suddenly becomes a “Strategic Crypto Reserve“.
Takeways:
I’m not buying $TRUMP, I know some serious degens who got in within the first 30 minutes who are laughing today. That moment has passed.
The risk / reward is not there and this thing is just too bizarre to go near.
In keeping with our own approach, Solana is up 17% since $TRUMP launched (it’s a memecoin on SOL), and Raydium ($RAY) which we added as a “picks and shovel” play on the entire Solana memecoin space is also up 17% on the day.
Which is all fine, but this episode has me thinking deeply about what this means for the entire crypto cycle.
On Monday: Trump will be inaugurated.
On Tuesday: The US hits the debt ceiling (however, with a lock on the house and senate, the debt ceiling almost certainly gets raised).
All indications are that we really are in a crack up boom and the sector telling us this the loudest is the memecoin space.
More to come, for now – don’t do anything, and don’t count on another 10X from $TRUMP from here (but don’t be surprised if it does).
If you must ape into this, be sure you are getting the $TRUMP meme coin on Solana
The followups to the Trump tweet are saturated with a scams and knock-offs, which is why I think this was such a mind-boggling irresponsible thing to do.
Unreal.
Disclosure: No position.
My aforementioned piece on the Post-Singularity, alternate universe crack-up boom we find ourselves in may still come out this weekend over on Bombthrower.
