$TRUMP Coin launches to explosive volume
As a candidate last year, President Donald Trump branded himself as pro-cryptocurrency, and more specifically, Bitcoin-friendly. Even with Trump’s avowedly crypto-supportive stance, however, few onlookers would have predicted the launch of a presidential meme coin before the end of January.
Yet, here we are in early 2025 and Trump has made the history books with the first digital token bearing a U.S. president’s name. Perhaps it makes perfect sense, given Trump’s penchant for business ventures – but then, the eye-opening burst of trading volume on Trump’s new coin might surprise even the staunchest meme coin critics.
Early birds got the profits
First and foremost, it’s not an insult to call the President’s $TRUMP Coin a meme coin. After all, Trump himself launched his cryptocurrency with the announcement on the X platform, “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW.”
Thus, Trump knows full well that his token is a meme coin that’s meant to prioritize community over real-world utility. It’s also supposed to prioritize “WINNING,” though if one checks the $TRUMP chart, it’s evident that latecomers weren’t winners.
The earliest buyers, assuming they had the foresight to take profits quickly, could certainly claim to be winners. The $TRUMP token, first priced at just $0.18, rallied thousands of percentage points to $73.69 within days of the coin’s debut before leveling out at around $65.51 on February 13th, according to Binance.
One trader reportedly purchased nearly 6 million $TRUMP tokes for approximately $1.1 million using USDC; in 90 seconds, that YOLO (“You Only Live Once”) traded catapulted in value to $23 million. It just goes to show that, even if a meme is supposed to be a joke, serious profits can be made by well-timed (or at least, very lucky) traders.
YOLO best-case scenarios aside, folks who jumped on the bandwagon after the initial price pump likely got the short end of the stick. As it turned out, the $TRUMP price didn’t stay in the $70s for long, and by the end of January the President’s meme coin was worth less than $30 apiece.
This isn’t to suggest that $TRUMP can’t or won’t recover. Besides, meme coins are known for volatility and unpredictability; hopefully, the token’s past, present, and future investors understand this, size their positions accordingly, and have some sort of exit strategy.
Price isn’t the only measure of “winning”
It’s easy for the skeptics to point to the $TRUMP price chart and conclude that Trump’s attempt at meme-ing a coin is a failure. However, price isn’t the be-all and end-all in the world of cryptocurrency.
“Adoption” is more than just a buzzword in the crypto-sphere. It’s a crucial concept that encompasses the growing acceptance of a thriving, technology-based asset class.
What’s a good way to measure adoption, then? Simply tracking a token’s price doesn’t really capture its adoption, growth, or popularity. For example, it’s entirely possible for Bitcoin, the world’s best-known cryptocurrency, to have a rough patch in terms of price but still expand in its global adoption.
Thus, open-minded participants might consider using other metrics besides price when it comes to $TRUMP and other meme coins. As of January 30, $TRUMP was number 26 in terms of popularity, which according to Binance is based on the relative market cap of assets – not too shabby for a relatively new meme token.
If popularity contributes to the concept of adoption, then so should trading volume. In that respect, $TRUMP definitely came out of the gate “winning” as its trading volume reached nearly $1 billion within the first hour after the token’s launch.
So, while it’s probably too early to declare Trump’s meme coin a “winner” in any meaningful sense, at least it’s gaining traction according to certain metrics.
But then, there’s another adoption-related metric that’s much harder to measure: credibility. That’s awfully difficult for any meme coin to achieve, even if it’s tied to the commander in chief.
Achieving credibility beyond the small community of meme coin enthusiasts will require longevity and, importantly, price stability. It won’t require use cases, though, since Trump declared his cryptocurrency a meme coin from the outset. For what it’s worth, though, the explosive early-stage trading volume of $TRUMP suggests that the naysayers can’t simply dismiss this intriguing, history-making, president-backed digital asset.