Is Donald Trump looking to endear himself further to the $2.5 trillion crypto industry with the launch of a new crypto token called “Trump Coin”?

That’s the buzz, according to crypto industry participants, as Trump ramps up his campaign for the November presidential election. Industry experts are trying to figure out the origins of a so-called meme token registered on the Solana blockchain platform under the symbol “DJT” and the moniker “Trump Coin.”

DJT, of course, is the stock symbol of Donald Trump’s social media platform called Truth Social. The stock itself has been a meme stock favorite since going public in March, with shares of DJT trading as high as $79.38. The stock currently trades around $35.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
DJT	TRUMP MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY GROUP CORP	34.72	-2.33	-6.29%

TRUMP BACKS BITCOIN AS DEFENSE AGAINST FOREIGN ADVERSARIES, CENTRALIZED DIGITAL CURRENCY

Like meme stocks, meme tokens are inspired by extraneous factors such as internet trends and pop culture references. Although some of the most famous meme coins, like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, were originally created as a joke, their popularity and cult-like followings have accelerated the total meme coin market cap to a staggering $50 billion.

By launching on the Solana blockchain, Trump Coin will join the ranks of other popular Solana-based meme coin projects like “Dogwifhat,” a token associated with a meme of a dog wearing a pink knitted hat; “Jeo Boden,” a satirical cartoon of President Biden; and “Mother Iggy,” a meme coin launched last month by Australian rapper Iggy Azalea.

According to blockchain explorer SolScan, the token began trading on Solana this evening with the market cap currently sitting at $73 million. 

FOX Business could not confirm if the token is directly or indirectly affiliated with Trump, but sources in the industry say people affiliated with the former president have been planning to launch a digital coin for at least two months.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign didn’t return requests for comment. A spokesperson for Truth Social also didn’t return calls for comment.

When asked for comment on the Trump Coin launch, former GOP presidential candidate and adviser to President Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, directed FOX Business to the Trump campaign but had this to say: “I’m glad President Trump and his campaign are leaning into crypto, including accepting it – he’s ahead of the curve. Embracing crypto will help Trump continue to bring libertarians and your not-typical Republicans into the fold – it’s a winning issue.”

Trump Coin is the latest of a handful of meme coins inspired by political candidates this election cycle. Other nonaffiliated Trump meme tokens are trading in the crypto landscape, including a token trading under the symbol MAGA, his “Make America Great Again” slogan with a cartoon of Trump and an American flag in the background.

TRUMP BECAME COUNTRY’S ‘FIRST CRYPTO PRESIDENT’ DURING FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE, FORMER CFTC REGULATOR SAYS

“MAGA” coin, which operates under the ticker TRUMP, is currently the most popular political meme coin, trading at just over $9 with a market cap of over $400 million. The price of the token dropped on the news of the launch of Trump Coin. 

Another Trump-inspired meme coin trades under the letters TROG; it accompanies a cartoon of a frog wearing a MAGA hat. Much smaller in comparison to MAGA, it has a market cap of $7.38 million and also fell on the news of the Trump Coin launch.

Neither MAGA nor TROG are affiliated with Trump, his various business ventures nor his 2024 presidential campaign directly. However, according to blockchain research firm Arkham Intelligence, the former president owns a substantial number of MAGA and TROG tokens, which he was gifted by the token creator. Trump, himself, is hardly a crypto bro, but he has tapped into the industry as a potential source of voters as the November elections near.

Around 52 million Americans have used crypto, according to a Coinbase study, and they are becoming increasingly politically active as they work to elect crypto-friendly politicians to congressional positions. One such candidate is John Deaton, a crypto lawyer who’s currently running as a Republican to unseat Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is prominently anti-crypto.

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Trump is worth an estimated $6 billion, but according to Arkham Intelligence, he now has a crypto portfolio worth around $6 million that he accumulated from various sources, including his own NFT collection and his holdings in MAGA coin and TROG coin.

The crypto vote could be pivotal in the coming presidential election, some analysts say. Many industry participants regard themselves as single-issue voters, meaning they will vote solely based on which candidate they think is the most crypto-friendly, regardless of their other political views, industry participants tell FOX Business. Trump is targeting those voters with the help of some of his advisers, including Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and crypto enthusiast who has been advising Trump on digital asset policy.

Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency has been on a wild experience since its inception. Totally different critics and supporters of the cryptocurrency have emerged over time. One main criticism has been that BTC has no intrinsic worth. Surprisingly, some even imagine, BTC needs to be priced at zero.

Incomes its worth

JHL, contributor at Serum, appeared in an interview with David Lin of Kitco Information, the place he mentioned Bitcoin’s utility amongst different issues.

What’s the utility of #Bitcoin? Ought to the intrinsic worth be $0? JHL of @ProjectSerum talks #Solana, #Ethereum, and find out how to decide #cryptos as an funding

Full interview: https://t.co/dfR816X0oL@KitcoNewsNOW pic.twitter.com/fog3Cmlozw

— David Lin (@davidlin_TV) December 27, 2021

At current many different tokens or initiatives have extra utility than BTC. There’s no denying this. On being requested if Bitcoin’s value needs to be zero as a result of it has no intrinsic worth, the younger engineer acknowledged,

“It’s an fascinating query… there are issues that got here earlier than Bitcoin that is likely to be in an analogous place, like gold and people issues are clearly very worthwhile now. So I believe that doesn’t essentially imply the Bitcoin value needs to be zero.”

It needs to be famous that the king coin did begin at $0. Nonetheless, over time, it gained worth, and is at present surfacing at across the $50k mark. Nonetheless, the zero idea has aggravated previously.

Nassim Taleb, famend writer of highly-regarded books similar to Black Swan and Pores and skin within the Sport, believes that the true worth of a Bitcoin is no greater than a zero.

Nonetheless, given BTC’s rising institutional adoption coupled with the rising inflation- BTC is unlikely to go away the 5-digit mark. Right here’s one other catalyst.

Bridging the hole

So far as transaction speeds and prices go, the contributor added that Bitcoin “will at all times be one of many quickest to transact and one of many most cost-effective.” He additional opined,

“You may’t say the identical factor will likely be true about every other token. It’s simply because Bitcoin is so huge and so nicely adopted now that I believe any blockchain that comes about will doubtless have a giant bridge from Bitcoin to that blockchain.”

No matter the rising competitors within the ecosystem, different tokens will doubtless have a way of bridging Bitcoin to them, he added.

Total. A collective frenzy has sprouted round bitcoin during the last decade. It’s onerous to foretell whether or not this cryptocurrency will turn out to be the worldwide reserve forex or a retailer of worth as extensively accepted as gold.

The joys of riches or spoil leaves some traders cautious, however others need to chase the possibility for large income from investing in Bitcoin. It can’t be denied that Bitcoin continues to seize consideration worldwide, be it for it above-mentioned use instances or, as a revolutionary expertise, and as an funding it’s definitely much less dangerous in 2021 than it was in 2012.