Donald Trump and his team have been accused of running a “pump and dump scheme” after back-to-back memecoin launches added billions of dollars to the net worths of the incoming US president and first lady.
Just a day after Trump’s self-branded Official Trump (TRUMP) token launched and soared to a $15 billion market cap, Trump’s wife Melania launched a self-titled memecoin of her own — which led commentators to accuse the family of unseemly behavior.
“You were right if you thought the smashing success of $TRUMP would make Trump greedy,” Bianco Research president Jim Bianco said on Jan. 19, following the launch of Mrs. Trump’s token.
“He tried to double down with a $MELANIA, but the market thinks it is a form of dilution and assumes/fears that Trump has tons of other coins in the wings to come.”
The TRUMP token fell 38% in the hours after his wife’s token launched. MELANIA hit a peak value of over $13 billion four hours after its Jan. 19 launch, which has since nearly halved to $7.3 billion.
“We are witnessing the largest unforced error ever made before a Presidential inauguration…unbelievable,” Phinance Technologies founder Edward Dowd said on X in response to TRUMP’s price fall.
We are witnessing the largest unforced error ever made before a Presidential inauguration…unbelievable. https://t.co/hdj0hkoubv
— Edward Dowd (@DowdEdward) January 19, 2025
Financial analyst Michael A. Gayed said on X that Trump’s credibility has been “totally destroyed,” describing TRUMP as a “pump and dump” scheme.
”My read is that the insiders who helped launch $TRUMP didn’t realize how much it would pump and either didn’t buy enough or sold too early,” Delphi Labs co-founder José Maria Macedo wrote in a Jan. 19 X post.
“They rushed to run it back with $MELANIA and make sure they filled their bags this time,” he added. “In their greed they nuked $30 [billion] of value, transformed the optics into pure grift, and probably committed a bunch of crimes too.”
The MELANIA memecoin launch comes amid a wider crypto market fall, which saw Bitcoin’s price (BTC) tumble almost 6% from $105,900 to below $99,650, TradingView data shows.
Related: TRUMP targets $100B market cap as Arthur Hayes calls on ‘degens’ to celebrate
Ryan Selkis, a Trump backer and the former CEO of crypto research firm Messari, recommended the president-elect “fire” whoever launched the MELANIA memecoin, claiming they “don’t know what they’re doing” and don’t have Trump’s best interests in mind.
Despite the criticisms, MELANIA and TRUMP have attracted trader attention like few tokens ever have, with the pair now having a total combined market cap of over $16 billion.
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