Trump himself took the stage and released a meme coin called TRUMP on Solana, and as of the time of writing, the market value of TRUMP had once exceeded $60 billion, with an FDV exceeding DOGE.
It's the image above, which created a new record in the history of cryptocurrencies within 4 hours. There has never been any new coin in history that has had an astonishing $30 billion value on the chain within 12 hours.
I. Token Economic Model
Note: The official Trump Meme TRUMP released this time may be behind the same team as the previous Trump Digital Trading Cards NFT series. The issuer of "Trump Digital Trading Cards" is NFT INT LLC, who purchased the use license of Trump's name and portrait from CIC Digital LLC to produce and sell the NFT series.
According to the introduction on the "GetTrumpMemes.com" website, the initial purchase of TRUMP requires going through Moonshot, supporting traditional payment methods such as Apple Pay, Visa, Mastercard, Venmo, as well as cryptocurrency payment methods such as USDC and SOL.
Given that the TRUMP contract address has now been publicly disclosed (6p6xgHyF7AeE6TZkSmFsko444wqoP15icUSqi2jfGiPN), and the on-chain pool has accumulated to a scale of $712 million, it will be more convenient for users to purchase directly on the chain at this time.
TRUMP was issued on the Solana chain, and the token is to commemorate Trump's heroic gesture of raising his fist and shouting the iconic battle cry "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT" after being assassinated on July 13, 2024.
GetTrumpMemes aims to express support and participation in the ideals and beliefs reflected by the "TRUMP" symbol and its related artworks, and is not intended to be an investment opportunity, investment contract, or the subject of any type of security.
GetTrumpMemes is not involved in politics and is not related to any political campaign activities or any political office or government agency.
The total supply of TRUMP is 1 billion, but only 200 million will be circulated initially, and the remaining 800 million will be gradually unlocked over the next 3 years.
The "GetTrumpMemes.com" website shows that the Trump Group's subsidiaries CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC jointly own 80% of the Trump Cards (note: officially stated as such, but based on the context, it should refer to the TRUMP token), but they are subject to a 3-year unlocking plan. The owners of Fight Fight Fight LLC, CIC Digital LLC and Celebration Cards LLC, will receive the transaction revenue generated from the Trump Cards trading activity.
The specific distribution of TRUMP and the future unlocking progress are shown in the following figures.
At a time when crypto meme coins related to elections have already faded and disappeared, Trump, through his official account and with record-breaking data, has announced his arrival in the crypto world, and the market has welcomed him with real money, with a trading volume of $20 billion, which speaks volumes.
This is an absolute boon for the cryptocurrency industry, a $10 billion crypto meme that has opened up the ceiling for the market and the imagination of capital. At this point, it no longer matters what this coin can be used for, as everyone just needs to know that when the President of the United States personally issues a coin, the significance of this move for the crypto industry is beyond imagination.
Next Monday, Trump will officially begin his second term as President of the United States. After an expensive campaign season, the crypto industry has finally welcomed its own president.
Benefiting from Trump's promise to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, his election victory has given Bitcoin a significant boost. At the same time, Ethereum-based infrastructure applications led by AAVE also shone brightly in the "Trump market" in December last year, and the market widely believes that ETH will shake off the gloom and reach new highs in the upcoming market.
However, there are currently industry insiders who believe that Trump's inauguration may bring greater benefits to networks like Solana that focus more on practical application scenarios rather than reserve assets.
In the week before Trump's inauguration, the SOL price rose by 19%. On January 16, according to a report cited by @tier10k from the New York Post, Trump is "open-minded" about using digital currencies issued in the US (such as Solana, USD Coin, and Ripple) as strategic reserves, and after the news broke, the SOL price further rose by 5%.
II. Trump's Crypto New Deal Boosts SOL
On January 15, Reuters reported that according to three informed sources, senior Republican officials at the SEC plan to start a comprehensive overhaul of the agency's cryptocurrency policy as early as next week, i.e., after Trump takes office.
Two of the sources said that the measures being considered by Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda include: initiating the process of developing guidance or rules to clarify the circumstances under which the agency will treat cryptocurrencies as securities, and reviewing some of the crypto enforcement cases currently in court.
In 2023, the SEC sued Coinbase and Binance, alleging that these cryptocurrency exchanges illegally acted as unregistered brokers by facilitating the trading of various tokens, including SOL.
In defining SOL as a security, the SEC led by Gary Gensler stated that US companies trading this token would be violating the law, as the SEC has only issued two special-purpose broker-dealer licenses, and neither of the approved companies offer SOL trading.
Although the SEC has withdrawn the allegations against Solana in the lawsuit against Binance, if the enforcement actions against Coinbase are also suspended, a major obstacle to the adoption of this network will be cleared.
III. Possibility of a SOL ETF?
As the issue of Solana's unregistered securities gradually subsides, some have already begun to look forward to the prospect of a SOL ETF, which could potentially list regulated Solana investment vehicles on public securities exchanges. Polymarket predicts a 75% chance of a SOL ETF being approved by 2025, but Leah Wald, CEO of Sol Strategies, recently told reporters that she does not believe a Solana ETF will be approved in the near term.
Under Trump's presidency and a more friendly regulatory environment, Solana may also gain an intangible benefit that is difficult to quantify.
Titus Capilnean, Vice President of Market Expansion at Civic Technologies, said that when the regulatory status of SOL was unclear, developers mainly focused on promoting meme coin trading, which "was actually a form of protest against the SEC's regulatory ambiguity."
Capilnean pointed out that with Trump's inauguration, the crypto industry "may shift from pure speculation to growth driven by practicality, and developers will be more confident in launching more complex applications without worrying about regulatory resistance."
Over the past year, many Solana developers in the US have said that if the regulations become clearer, the chances of their products finding market fit will increase significantly. Now is the time for them to prove this.
TRUMP may be a testament to this, as "craziness" has always been Trump's label, and his personal involvement in issuing a coin on a chain like Solana with a broad mass base, after the precedent of GME, the power of retail investors is worth imagining.
IV. Trump's Eldest Son Eric Trump Confirms the Legitimacy of the TRUMP Coin
On January 18, Trump's eldest son Eric Trump posted on social media, quoting comments from crypto czar David Sacks that "the reign of terror over crypto is over, and the beginning of American crypto innovation is just starting." He also mentioned Bitcoin, the family project World Liberty Financial, and the new official Meme project TRUMP.
