Trump’s Meme Coin Whipsaws After President Says He ‘Don’t Know Much About It’

Donald Trump’s viral meme coin saw significant volatility on Tuesday after the president tried to distance himself from the $8 billion project that bears his name.

“I don’t know much about it other than I launched it,” Trump told reporters at a meeting of tech executives. ‘I heard it was very successful. I haven’t checked.’

After rising to a 24-hour high of $48.18, the Official Trump (TRUMP) meme coin fell 16% to $40.29 immediately following his comments. Since then, it has regained a position above $43.37.

When briefed on the multi-billion dollar valuation, Trump dismissed it as “peanuts” compared to technology investments, speaking alongside executives from SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle.

The token rebounded by around 7.5% within an hour of his comments, returning the token to a market cap of $8.7 billion with a fully diluted value of $43.6 billion.

The latter measures how much a coin’s market capitalization could appreciate if its full supply entered circulation based on what it is currently worth.

The TRUMP token had already faced turbulence after First Lady Melania Trump launched its own competing meme coin Sunday, leading to a 50% price drop amid massive sell-off by early investors, with the crypto community divided about what the two meme coins meant for the industry.

Both tokens’ supplies appear concentrated among the project’s publishers, according to data from on-chain research firm Bubblemaps shows. One anonymous trader managed to turn around $1 million to over $116 million through what seemed to be perfectly timed purchases.

Investment bank and financial services firm TD Cowen warned through its Washington Research Group that the presidential meme coins could derail bipartisan crypto legislation efforts as investigations into possible insider trading would intensify existing partisan tensions.

“This jeopardizes the ability to advance the crypto bill with the bipartisan support it will need to become law,” the company said. reportedly said Tuesday.

Despite the president’s apparent indifference, major platforms including Coinbase and Robinhood have listed the “official” Trump meme coin, which still has a multi-billion dollar market cap.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair