- President Donald Trump launched a crypto coin a few days before taking office—but after an initial rally, its price dropped on Tuesday. Shares of Trump’s media company saw similar market moves on his first full day back in office.
Two assets linked with President Donald Trump dropped in value the day after he was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States.
Shares of the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), which owns Truth Social, and the cryptocurrency coin the President launched Jan. 17, just a few days before his inauguration, both dropped in the early hours of trading on Tuesday. TMTG stock fell 12% and Trump’s meme coin, which trades under the name $TRUMP, fell 29%.
A memecoin is a type of digital currency whose value is not connected to any financial metrics; instead, they often trade on investor sentiment or cultural trends. These types of investments have a tendency to be highly volatile.
First Lady Melania Trump launched a memecoin the same day her husband did. The value of her memecoin fell 51% on Tuesday.
Trump’s coin hit an all-time high of $75.35, and his wife’s coin reached a peak price of $13.73. Despite falling drastically on Tuesday, both coins returned significant gains to certain investors who bought early and sold the coin when it was nearing its peak price. The Trumps launched their memecoins on the popular blockchain Solana.
The move drew significant condemnation from Trump’s critics, who said it risked mixing the president’s personal wealth with his official duties.
The “most dangerous thing for [the] country about Trump coin is what comes next,” Trump’s former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who is also a major crypto investor, wrote on X. “Now anyone in [the] world can essentially deposit money into [the] bank account of [the] President of [the] USA with a couple clicks. Every favor—geopolitical, corporate or personal—is now on sale, right out in the open.”
Meanwhile, Ro Khanna, the liberal representative from California’s 17th District, advocated for banning the sale of such assets by public officials. “Elected officials must be barred from having meme coins by law,” Khanna posted on X. “Meme coins are highly speculative and like gambling must be regulated by the SEC.”
Even Trump-supporting crypto execs denounced his memecoin. “It’s absolutely preposterous that he would do this,” founding partner of the crypto investment company Castle Island Ventures Nic Carter told Politico. “They’re plumbing new depths of idiocy with the meme coin launch.”
During his election campaign, Trump made many overtures to the crypto community after previously being highly skeptical of the asset. On the campaign trail, he pledged to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet.”
After Trump won the election in November, Bitcoin prices soared along with other stocks connected to the crypto industry. They have since cooled.
Similar movements happened to TMTG stock in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election win. The stock shot up, then came back down.
On Tuesday, shares of TMTG fell to $35.31 a share as of the time of publication. TMTG operates the social media platform Truth Social and the Truth+ streaming service. Its share price has often served as a reflection of Trump’s political prospects and as a way for his voters to show their support. This has led some experts to refer to it as a meme stock, meaning a stock that trades on something other than business fundamentals. In October, as the election approached, trading volumes for TMTG soared as investors tried to figure out whether to buy or sell the stock amid an extremely tight presidential race. Those trading flurries led to wild oscillations in its share price in October, which forced the Nasdaq to pause trading several times.
However, despite falling on Tuesday, TMTG stock had previously been on a tear. At one point, in fall 2024, it rose 270% in a single month. The company is also a major source of Trump’s wealth, at least on paper. The president owns roughly 114.5 million shares in TMTG, which at the current share price is valued at roughly $4 billion.
