Hours before the second inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump, incoming first lady Melania Trump has launched her own cryptocurrency.
“The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $MELANIA now,” Melania Trump posted on X in the early hours of Monday.
The launch of $Melania comes just days after Mr Trump launched his own meme coin, and appeared to briefly tank the value of $Trump before it then rebounded.
The meme coin’s official website says the cryptocurrency is created and tracked on the Solana blockchain.
Meme coins are defined as any cryptocurrency that is named after characters, individuals, animals or artwork.
Both the $Trump and $Melania coins have risen in value since launch but are also seeing volatile trade, and their respective websites note that the cryptocurrencies are “not intended to be, or the subject of” an investment opportunity or a security.
The $Trump website describes the token as an expression of support for the new president.
“It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community,” the president-elect said in a post late on Friday.
The $Trump meme coin has a total market valuation of about $12 billion (£9.8bn) and the $Melania cryptocurrency stands at just over $2 billion, according to the CoinMarketCap website.
Mr Trump has suggested that as president he would issue an executive order to make crypto a policy priority, marking a shift from the Biden administration which probed the crypto industry over concerns about fraud and money laundering.
The president-elect ran a campaign that promised to end the “persecution” of the crypto industry, and to position the US as the “bitcoin superpower of the world”.
He even floated the idea of using bitcoin to “pay off the $35 trillion” national debt in August.
“Hand them a little crypto check, right? We’ll hand them a little bitcoin and wipe out our $35 trillion,” he told Fox Business.
The president-elect has also invested personally in NFTs, or nonfungible tokens.
He reported earning between $100,000 and $1 million last year from digital trading cards portraying him in cartoon-like images, including as an astronaut, a cowboy and a superhero, the Associated Press reported.
As of Monday morning, the price of bitcoin remained at record-high levels above $108,000 since crossing the $100,000 mark on Friday.
