The US president and first lady’s recently launched memecoins are mostly held by just 40 crypto whales who have $10 million or more in either of the tokens, according to a blockchain analytics firm.
The crypto whales “dominate” token holdings for Donald Trump’s Official Trump (TRUMP) token or wife Melania’s Melania Meme (MELANIA) token, making up for 94% of the combined token share, Chainalysis said in a Jan. 22 X post.
Those holding $1 million to $10 million worth of either token only make up 2.1% of total holders, while wallets holding between $100,000 to $1 million made up 1.7%, it added.
Chainalysis said around 2.2% of the TRUMP and MELANIA owners hold less than $100,000 worth.
DexScreener data shows 790,000 crypto wallets hold the TRUMP coin, while 343,000 own MELANIA.
Despite the significant concentration of holdings among whales, Chainalysis said that the Trump family memecoin launches attracted a wave of new users to crypto, with nearly half of the buyers creating wallets on the same day they purchased the tokens.
The teams behind TRUMP and MELANIA claim that tokens were distributed similarly to most other token allocations. The website for MELANIA said 35% of the tokens were distributed to its team, 20% to both treasury and community and 15% to the public, while the remaining 10% was set aside for liquidity.
Related: The Trump era begins: SEC launches crypto task force led by ‘Crypto Mom’ Hester Peirce
Blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps said in a Jan. 22 X post that onchain data shows the distribution of the MELANIA token “doesn’t match their website.”
Bubblemaps had said shortly after the token launched that nearly 90% of the supply was held in a single wallet.
Most tokenholders have broken even
Chainalysis noted that 77% of TRUMP tokenholders have made less than $100, while 60 whales have made over $10 million.
Only a small percentage of TRUMP holders have lost funds between $10,000 and 100,000 and few, if any, have lost more than $100,000.
Magazine: They solved crypto’s janky UX problem. You just haven’t noticed yet
