(NewsNation) — President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency, $Trump, allowed some traders to make millions of dollars while many others lost money totaling in the billions, according to The New York Times.
The price of $Trump has dropped to around $17, resulting in cumulative losses of $2 billion for over 810,000 crypto wallets. Meanwhile, the Trumps have earned over $100 million in trading fees, the newspaper reports.
“The president is participating in shady crypto schemes that harm investors while at the same time appointing financial regulators who will roll back protections for victims and who may insulate him and his family from enforcement,” Corey Frayer, who left his job as a crypto adviser to the Securities and Exchange Commission, told The New York Times.
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What is a meme coin?
Meme coins are cryptocurrencies inspired by internet trends or jokes. They have no intrinsic value. They’re worth what someone else is willing to pay. In some cases, that can be a lot.
Dogecoin, the first meme coin, was meant as satire to mock Bitcoin, but its viral popularity has led to real gains for many. The coin has a current market cap of roughly $55 billion.
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Unlike stocks, which represent an ownership share in a company, meme coins’ value are based on hype, making them notoriously volatile and risky to invest in.
Why did Trump launch a meme coin?
Trump is expected to be the most pro-crypto president in history, and his foray into the space suggests as much. The project was expected to enrich him personally, raising ethics issues.
“The tokens released by Donald and Melania Trump appear to symbolize support for the digital currency sector. However, the introduction of these coins during the presidential inauguration raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest,” Grzegorz Drozdz, market analyst at Conotoxia, told CNBC.
NewsNation’s Andrew Dorn contributed to this report.
