The meme of Qin Shi Huang's V50 and the FOMO of the President's coin, no matter how you look at it, the "President's Coin" seems more reliable, but the speed of the sickle swinging depends not on the level of cognition, but on the number of leeks.
As soon as 2025 arrived, we saw two so-called "President's Coins" rise high and then collapse: the $TRUMP token issued by the Trump family, which skyrocketed and then plummeted after an epic surge, and the $LIBRA token briefly endorsed by Argentine President Javier Milei, which experienced a lightning-fast crash. These two events not only exposed the craziness and fragility of the Meme coin market, but also revealed the deep-seated risks of the integration of political power and cryptocurrencies.
I. $TRUMP Token: From "Making Meme Coins Great Again" to a Harvesting Tool
Since the Trump family launched the $TRUMP token in January 2025, they have whipped up a market frenzy with the political aura as a gimmick. In the initial listing period, the token's market value once exceeded $42 billion, with a single-day gain of up to 41,200%. However, its collapse was equally astonishing: due to insider trading allegations, family members issuing coins to divert funds, and policy expectations not being met, the $TRUMP price plummeted from a peak of $82 to $17, with its market value evaporating by more than 80%.
II. $LIBRA Token: The "Flash Mob" Farce of Political Endorsement
Compared to the sustained hype of $TRUMP, the $LIBRA token endorsed by Argentine President Milei was more like a carefully designed "performance art". On February 15, Milei recommended $LIBRA on social media, claiming it would be used to support Argentine SMEs and drive the token's market value to $4.3 billion in just half an hour. But just a few hours later, Milei suddenly backtracked, saying he "didn't understand the project details", causing the coin price to crash instantly. The ins and outs and the disclaimers of the various market makers have already exhausted us, and the truth is no longer necessary to verify, as delayed justice is but an unbearable result.
Milei's tweet clearly marked the token contract address and linked to the "Viva La Libertad" project website, implying official endorsement. But when the market frenzy was ignited, his swift disassociation of responsibility essentially constituted a fraud on public trust. This "incite first, then disassociate" modus operandi is no different from the Trump family's cross-account manipulation to hype the token, turning political influence into a harvesting tool.
Meme coin speculation has evolved from a grassroots frenzy into a collusion game of power and capital. When politicians use tokens as a tool to monetize their personal influence, and when exchanges tolerate bubbles for traffic, the original "decentralization" aspiration of cryptocurrencies has already been distorted.
Beyond the cases of $TRUMP and $LIBRA, a more insidious crisis is emerging: political forces are trying to reshape the financial discourse through cryptocurrencies. The Trump team has openly stated that "they will use crypto donations to break through the traditional campaign finance limits", while Milei's supporters claim that "$LIBRA is a weapon to break the central bank monopoly". This strategy of binding Meme coins with ideology is actually a parasitic utilization of the decentralization spirit by the ruling class.
Retail Psychology: The Vicious Cycle of FOMO Sentiment and Cognitive Dissonance
In the two collapse events, the behavioral patterns of retail investors showed a surprising consistency. Behavioral finance experts, through on-chain data analysis, found that even in the face of obvious fraud, 62% of affected investors continued to increase their positions after the tokens went to zero. The irrationality behind this behavior is the result of the superimposition of three psychological mechanisms:
1. The reinforcement of the sunk cost fallacy: During the $TRUMP crash, the widespread social media slogan of "buying the dip is patriotic" tied investment losses to political loyalty. This emotional extortion led a large number of investors to continue investing even after the price had fallen by 50%, ultimately expanding their losses to 90%.
2. The self-reinforcing algorithm of the information cocoon exacerbates cognitive bias: In Twitter and Telegram-related communities, negative information is systematically filtered out, and token holders can only see optimistic content like "Trump must win" and "Milei's economic revolution". This information loop makes rational risk assessment almost impossible.
3. The institutionalization of the gambling mentality: The trading platforms' launch of Meme coin contract products (such as Binance's TRUMPUSDT perpetual contract) has normalized speculative behavior. When 100x leverage becomes the norm, investment has been transformed into pure gambling. University of Chicago research shows that 78% of investors participating in high-leverage Meme coin trading exhibit pathological gambling tendencies.
Summary
Presidential endorsement ≠ value guarantee, let alone a president with an expiration date, which are essentially MEME coins hyped by emotions, with a limited lifespan like ready-to-eat food, and it's hard to get excited about tasting them again once you've tried them.
When the most powerful seek to be tigers, the considerations are not just convenience and means, but the firm determination not to become the menu item. When technological idealism is corrupted by political opportunism, and the promise of decentralization becomes a fig leaf for code dictatorship, the cryptocurrency industry is about to face a crossroads of life and death.
