The first year of Trump Meme Coin leaves crypto policy in limbo

It was a Friday night bomb that no one saw coming.

Three days before his second inauguration last January, President Donald Trump’s social media accounts lit up with news of the launch of Official Trump (TRUMP), a Solana-based meme coin with his name and political brand.

The sign jumped to a market cap of $10 billion within hours, reaching a peak of $73 and sending epee traders into a panic, triggering more than 8 million requests per minute that overwhelmed Phantom Wallet’s infrastructure.

A year later, the TRUMP token is trading just under $5, about 93% lower than its all-time high, with a market cap of over $987 million, according to CoinGecko facts.

As TRUMP becomes one, questions about conflicts of interest remain unresolved: The Trump family continues to run multiple crypto ventures while the president is in power, and Democrats increasingly cite his personal enrichment as a reason to block digital asset reform.

“Trump’s meme coin launch has done more harm than good to the industry, as his political opponents cite his personal profits from the meme coin launch as a reason to block or delay the crypto coin’s legislative process,” Peter Chung, head of research at Singapore-based Presto Labs, told me. Declutter. “It’s an unnecessary distraction.”

Trump’s crypto conflicts have done just that dominated the debate and even delayed passage of the stablecoin GENIUS Act.

In May, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) led a Democratic walkout over “Trump’s crypto corruption” in an effort to force divestment language into the bill.

Crypto connections

The president’s crypto connections extend from the meme coin to World freedom financial and its USD1 stablecoin.

His family’s crypto empire has mushroomed and has more than… $1 billion in profitssaid his son, Eric Trump, who is the Financial times in October that figure was “probably more”.

Last May, Rep. Waters introduced the “Stop TRUMP in Crypto Act of 2025,” targeting the president’s ability to profit from digital assets while in office.

That same month, the president held a dinner behind closed doors for the top 220 TRUMP holders (press blocked), including Tron founder Justin Sun, who bought more than $22 million in TRUMP and invested tens of millions in World Freedom.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called the dinner “an orgy of corruption” during a press conference, as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the venue.

World Liberty Financial examined a similar study, where the Trump family’s WLFI stake increased their net worth more than 6 billion dollars since trading began. Trump in June disclosed $57.3 million in revenue that lawmakers called “open corruption,” and Senator Warren called a $2 billion investment in the UAE tied to the project’s stablecoin USD1 “shady.”

Declutter has contacted the White House for comment.