Cryptocurrency prices have skyrocketed ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration as the 47th President of the United States on January 20, with meme coins garnering a lot of interest. The latest additions to this trend are $TRUMP and $MELANIA, two new tokens named after the soon-to-be president and his wife Melania Trump. These tokens were launched just before Trump’s inauguration, creating a buzz in crypto markets.
Within hours after its January 17 introduction, the value of the $TRUMP Meme Coin surged by more than 300 per cent. The coin was minted on the Solana blockchain and promoted by Trump himself, who took to Truth Social to share his excitement: “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW.”
The launch of the $MELANIA coin on January 20 (January 19 in the US) caused an immediate reaction in the market. Melania Trump announced the coin on X (formerly Twitter), stating, “The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $MELANIA now.”
Melania Trump’s self-titled token, $MELANIA, has taken the crypto world by storm, hitting a market cap of USD 5.71 billion within two hours of its launch.
The introduction of the $MELANIA token had a noticeable effect on its rival, the $TRUMP coin. Within 24 hours of the $MELANIA launch, $TRUMP experienced a decline of nearly 40 per cent, dropping from USD 74.06 to USD 44.82.
At one point during the weekend, $TRUMP had briefly hit USD 15 billion in market value amid skyrocketing trade volumes before sliding to USD 10 billion on January 19, as reported by Bloomberg.
Despite this dip, the $TRUMP coin made a strong comeback by January 20, trading at USD 59.79 at the time of writing. Its market capitalization surged to approximately USD 11.91 billion, with its 24-hour trading volume reaching USD 52.35 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. This surge was driven by the excitement surrounding Trump’s return to the White House, as well as the growing interest in the newly launched meme coins.
Both $TRUMP and $MELANIA are created on the Solana blockchain, demonstrating the increasing popularity of meme currencies in the cryptocurrency industry. Meme coins are a highly speculative segment of the crypto market, often starting as jokes but experiencing price surges when there’s enough demand.
At the time of writing, the global crypto market had decreased marginally, with the total market cap down by 2.43 per cent to USD 3.56 trillion. The total trading volume surged by 92.79 per cent to USD 360.09 billion. Bitcoin was down by 1.12 per cent to USD 103,546.75, while Ethereum was up by 2.09 per cent, reaching USD 3,348.94.
