World Liberty Financial (WLF), a cryptocurrency project linked to U.S. President Donald Trump, raises $1 billion in token sale and also launches new Trump meme coin as President Trump takes office for second term Its market value soared to more than $10 billion. .
WLF made the announcement on Monday, the day Trump was inaugurated as president.
The boom in Trump-related cryptocurrency ventures comes in stark contrast to the regulatory oversight of the cryptocurrency industry enacted under former President Joe Biden’s administration, which he said was ushering in a “golden age” of cryptocurrencies. It comes from what you promise.
The WLF was promoted and formed by Trump, his sons, and Trump’s new Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and was launched two months before the US presidential election.
President Trump’s new meme coin, branded $TRUMP, was launched Friday night during the first-ever Crypto Ball held in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the inauguration ceremony. The coin soared to $74.59 on Monday from less than $10 on Saturday morning before giving up some of its significant gains.
The new coin expands President Trump’s interest in cryptocurrencies beyond WLF.
Melania Trump launched her own coin, $MELANIA, on Sunday. That rise has pushed its market capitalization well over $1 billion.
According to the website, four-fifths of TrumpCoin’s tokens are owned by CIC Digital, an affiliate of Trump’s business, and another entity called Fight Fight Fight. The coin is “an expression of support for and commitment to the ideals and beliefs that the symbol $TRUMP embodies,” and is not an investment or security.
The WLF’s launch just two months before the November US election has raised concerns about ethics and conflicts of interest. The meme coin launch on Friday night also raised red flags among those in the crypto industry.
“While it’s tempting to dismiss this as just another Trump spectacle, the launch of an official Trump token opens a Pandora’s box of ethical and regulatory questions,” said Justin Danesan, an independent cryptocurrency analyst based in Hong Kong. It will become.”
Cryptocurrency lawyer Preston Byrne published a blog post on Sunday predicting civil lawsuits against the coin.
“Someone will lose money and someone’s lawyer will come up with a theory and file a lawsuit,” Byrne wrote. “Launching a memecoin is a grave, unforced mistake from a purely political point of view.”
Byrne declined further comment.
“Crypto President”
The Trump Organization announced this month that the president will hand over day-to-day management of his multibillion-dollar real estate, hotel, golf, media and licensing portfolio to his children when he enters the White House.
By 2:45 p.m. ET, Trumpcoin was trading at $42.20, giving it a market cap of about $8.5 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
The 24-hour trading volume reached nearly $40 billion, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
WLF sold nearly 22 billion tokens on Monday, trampling its original goal, according to the company’s website.
This includes a total of $75 million in investments from Tron founder Justin Sun, who was indicted for cryptocurrency-related fraud and securities violations during the Biden administration.
Excitement over so-called meme coins has driven crypto prices higher, with traders and investors increasingly hopeful that Trump will keep his promise to be the “crypto president” by loosening regulations and promoting ownership of digital assets. Helped the broad rise.
Several key figures in and around the Trump administration have ties to the cryptocurrency industry.
Bitcoin hit $104,031 on Inauguration Day and is up nearly 7% so far this month.
Trump and Melania Trump’s cryptocurrency was created on the little-known Solana blockchain, which CoinMarketCap ranks as the third largest blockchain network.
The price of Solana coin also rose over the weekend, hitting an all-time high of $294.33 on Sunday.
“The launch of Trump and Melania’s crypto right before the inauguration has further increased the popularity of the crypto market in recent hours,” Grzegorz Droz, market analyst at Konotoxia, said in a statement.
blur the lines
Peter Schiff, chief economist and global strategist at Euro Pacific Asset Management, took to social media to point out the soaring value of $TRUMP, calling it the new digital gold.
According to Forbes magazine, Trump’s net worth is estimated at $6.7 billion. This does not include the value of the $TRUMP coin or the income from WLF, at least on paper.
The prospect of easing regulations on crypto policy has been widely welcomed by the industry and fueled Bitcoin’s rally following Trump’s victory in November’s presidential election.
The large increase in the price of the new coin has caused concern among some analysts.
“Such memetic cryptocurrencies tend to be highly volatile and are generally considered speculative assets,” Konotoxia’s Drozz said.
Danesan, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency analyst, said Trump’s coin symbolized the convergence of the world of decentralized finance and the political realm, but also “blurred the lines between governance, profit, and influence.” “I will.”
“Should public figures, especially those with such political clout, exercise such influence in speculative markets? That is a question that regulators are unlikely to ignore,” he said. .
Both Trump and Melania Trump Coin’s websites avoid calling the coins cryptocurrencies, instead using the phrase “alternative cryptoassets” in their FAQs.
On Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. posted on X that the $TRUMP coin is “the hottest digital meme on the planet” and that WLF will be “the future of finance.”
“We’re just getting started,” he said.