President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump’s recently released cryptocurrency meme coins were not warmly received by crypto experts and investors - even those who support Trump.
Just days before Trump’s inauguration, the Trumps announced they were releasing “Trump” and “Melania” meme coins – cryptocurrencies with no economic or transactional value often seen as a means of speculation.
The announcement was met with mixed reviews from crypto experts who raised concerns that it could further delegitimize the crypto world.
“The memecoins cost the US, the presidency and his family a lot of credibility and the consequences haven’t even started,” Gabor Gurbacs, the director of an alternative digital asset firm and a Trump supporter, wrote on X.
Gurbacs called on Trump to “fire” his crypto advisers.
Nic Carter, a general partner at a crypto investment firm and Trump supporter, told Politico, “It’s absolutely preposterous that he would do this.”
“They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the meme coin launch,” Carter said.
Cryptocurrency advocates have largely welcomed Trump’s ascent to the White House because Trump has promised to elevate the alternative forms of payment, calling himself the first “crypto president.”
But the launch of the Trump meme coin has worried some.
One Washington lobbyist told Politico the Trumps’ meme coin launch was “awful” and a “horrible look for the industry”.
“This is a horrible look for the industry already trying to make the case that we’re not a bunch of hucksters, scammers and fraudsters,” the unnamed lobbyist said.
As some crypto investors raised concerns over Trump’s meme coin delegitimizing the industry, other watchdogs sounded the alarm over potential ethical conflicts.
Norm Eisen, a former White House adviser who served on the board of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told The Washington Post it posed a “profound” conflict of interest.
“He’s launching a major, new multibillion-dollar venture in the burgeoning crypto industry, where he has the most profound conflict of interest between [what] he’s seeking to gain and his duties to regulate that industry,” Eisen said.
Just days after Trump launched the meme coins, they skyrocketed in value. By Inauguration Day they were worth well over $10 billion. The Melania coin now has a value of about $1 billion.
