President Donald Trump hosts an unique dinner at present for the primary 220 holders of his eponymously named “TRUMP” cryptocurrency, a controversial class of cryptocurrency often known as a “meme coin.”
Trump Group-affiliated entities maintain 80 p.c of the TRUMP cryptocurrency token, which launched in January 2025 and is at the moment valued at greater than $3 billion.
Analysts say Trump’s possession of this cryptocurrency creates a potential battle of curiosity towards his assist of the cryptocurrency trade at massive.
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The non-public dinner, seen by some as a cash-for-access alternative, will probably be held on the Trump Nationwide Golf Membership, Washington, D.C., in Northern Virginia.
Other than the moral and political questions surrounding Trump’s affiliation with the venture, the venture has attracted additional controversy from its standing as a ‘meme coin’ — however what precisely does that imply?
Trump and Cryptocurrency – A Fast Recap
Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies which might be purchased and bought as tokens, in a method much like international foreign money alternate. Among the most well-known cryptocurrencies embrace Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple.
Proponents say cryptocurrency can present finance and alternate options to individuals who can not entry banking or supply a extra equitable, non-public, and community-driven monetary atmosphere in comparison with conventional, centralized banking.
The cryptocurrencies with the largest market capitalizations, or buy-in, could turn out to be standard due to their potential use instances, reminiscent of Bitcoin, whose supporters imagine it may turn out to be a new retailer of wealth or act as a hedge towards inflation.
With the proper data, anybody can create a cryptocurrency. It is as much as the individuals who create them to determine the utility, safety, and the way it’s bought.
Nevertheless, the benefit with which cryptocurrencies will be created presents different alternatives, some extra nefarious than others.
Meme cash confer with a class of cryptocurrencies that won’t have any actual use case however usually generate word-of-mouth-driven funding primarily based on the recognition of one thing else, reminiscent of a celeb or an internet pattern or meme (therefore the title).
Whereas most of the most profitable ones have been launched within the early 2010s, their success picked up dramatically round 2021 as cryptocurrency hit mainstream consideration.
For instance, DOGE, the namesake from which Elon Musk named the Division of Authorities Effectivity, is a cryptocurrency created as a joke, emblemized by “doge”, a standard meme primarily based on a photograph of a Shiba Inu looking canine.
Though it began as a joke, DOGE has since turn out to be one of many highest-valued cryptocurrencies on this planet, pushed partly by adoption and funding from Elon Musk. Regardless of its reputation, the venture’s utility has not superior considerably.
All these cryptocurrencies are sometimes created rapidly to hop on the again of worthwhile developments. For instance, DOGE’s success led to a host of different profitable meme cash with thematic similarities, reminiscent of Shiba Inu, Baby Doge Coin, and Floki (primarily based on the title of Elon Musk’s canine).
Meme cash usually don’t generate long-term worth. Their costs normally spike primarily based on word-of-mouth, then rapidly plummet as curiosity dies down. This high-risk strategy, which has nonetheless attracted hundreds of thousands of traders hoping to get wealthy rapidly, has opened the door to scams which have value billions of {dollars}.
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Scams, Ponzi Schemes, and Indignant Buyers
The commonest of those scams are often known as “pump and dumps” the place a cryptocurrency’s creator holds onto most of their foreign money’s provide, creates pleasure and hype round their launch after which, when sufficient traders have purchased in, sells their share, sinking the worth of the cryptocurrency.
Whereas “pump and dumps” will be organized round conventional monetary devices like shares and shares, poor meme coin regulation, anonymity, and trend-based reputation have empowered fraudsters.
Professor Gerard Comizio, Affiliate Director and Professor of the Enterprise Regulation Program at Washington School of Regulation, instructed Newsweek meme cash are seen by critics as a “dangerous funding at finest, and at worst, a new type of Ponzi scheme.”
“The providing of the coin is preceded by a lot of preliminary curiosity and hype fueled by the A-lister or celeb standing and social media presence related to the originator of the coin,” Comizio stated.
“The hype may cause the coin to initially skyrocket in value as new traders reply to the hype and soar in to purchase it, however this progress is normally not sustainable for the reason that meme value will depend on a continued pipeline of latest traders.
“Nevertheless, preliminary investor curiosity will recede, the meme value will usually crash, inflicting the preliminary traders to lose some or most of their funding.
“This ‘hype and crash’ typically related to meme coin is a good cause for potential traders to utterly perceive that the meme coin has no intrinsic worth and, isn’t at present topic to any regulation governing these cash or their sale, and so they may stand to lose some or all of their funding.”
Meme cash usually are not inherently fraudulent, however their mechanisms and recognition make them engaging to fraudsters and scams. Many celebrities and public figures have launched meme coin cryptocurrencies, though not all with resounding success or credibility.
Final yr, traders who purchased the $HAWK token, a meme coin cryptocurrency primarily based on and promoted by web meme celeb Hailey Welsh, sued the token’s creators, claiming Welch’s reputation was leveraged to dupe “first-time” traders into shopping for what they stated was marketed as a “groundbreaking cryptocurrency venture.”
“The speedy decline within the Token’s worth triggered substantial damages to traders who relied on Welch’s participation and the venture’s acknowledged street map,” the defendants’ attorneys acknowledged of their submitting.
Is Donald Trump’s Cryptocurrency a “Meme Coin?”
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To be clear, there is no such thing as a proof that Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency has been designed to swindle or foil traders as others have.
Nevertheless, TRUMP has seemingly no utility past the recognition of the model it’s connected to and has persistently slid in worth because it was launched in January 2025. In Could 2025, the worth of 1 TRUMP cryptocurrency coin hovered between $11 and $15, down from its peak of round $45 in January, in accordance with cryptocurrency web site CoinMarketCap.
By the admission of TRUMP’s creators, it’s a meme coin. It’s referred to on its official web site as “THE ONLY OFFICIAL TRUMP MEME” including, “Trump Memes are meant to perform as an expression of assist for, and engagement with, the beliefs and beliefs embodied by the image “$TRUMP” and the related art work, and usually are not meant to be, or to be the topic of, an funding alternative, funding contract, or safety of any kind.”
“GetTrumpMemes.com isn’t political and has nothing to do with any political marketing campaign or any political workplace or governmental company,” it provides.
Newsweek has contacted the TRUMP official web site by way of a contact kind for remark.
White Home spokesperson Anna Kelly instructed Newsweek: “The President is working to safe GOOD offers for the American individuals, not for himself.
“President Trump solely acts in the most effective pursuits of the American public – which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this workplace, regardless of years of lies and false accusations towards him and his companies from the pretend information media.”
Professor Comizio instructed Newsweek that whereas meme cash are simply one other kind of funding, it was vital that common traders know in regards to the dangers.
“One of many considerations related to meme coin choices is that, in contrast to regulation that applies to choices of different varieties of monetary investments reminiscent of shares or mutual funds, there is no such thing as a regulation that ensures that potential meme coin traders obtain full, truthful and correct disclosure of the potential funding dangers related to such investments-including the potential to lose some or your whole funding,” Comizio stated.
“Nor are there another regulatory safeguards relevant to the style and conduct of such choices.”
The Trump administration has taken steps to legitimize the commerce and availability of cryptocurrencies. This week, the Senate handed a cloture vote on The Guiding and Establishing Nationwide Innovation for U.S. Stablecoin Act, a invoice that may try to control the marketplace for stablecoins, a class of cryptocurrency pegged to a commodity or foreign money such because the U.S. Greenback.
Professor David Yermack, Albert Fingerhut Professor of Finance and Enterprise Transformation at New York College Stern Faculty of Enterprise, instructed Newsweek that the instance set by TRUMP may have vast ranging implications.
“Many meme cash are expressions of affinity, the place the purchaser of the coin makes use of it to sign assist for a sports activities crew, or a musical performer, or another kind of issuer.
“In that sense, meme cash issued by politicians could have a position to play in fundraising, campaigning, and promoting over the long run.
“I feel this complete space may be very new, and innovation will proceed, and I doubt that Trump would be the final politician to challenge his personal coin.
“You would possibly see all of the presidential candidates in 2028 launching meme cash.”
