Fever meme
The launch of the $TRUMP meme coin sparks a frenzy
Meme coIns go into overdrive with $TRUMP and $MELANIA.
In Loose change: Crypto.com launches new services.
The SEC announces a Crypto Task Force.
The orange age
Yuge Gains: President Donald Trump launched the “OFFICIAL TRUMP” ($TRUMP) crypto memecoin, with the price hiking over 1,100% in 36 hours.
The Solana ecosystem-based coin rose from $6 to $75 before dropping to a low of around $35 and ‘stabilising’ just shy of $40.
Source: TradingView
To the Moon-a-lago? Early reports misrepresented the potential inflation of President Trump’s wealth. The coin’s website shows 80% of the $TRUMP supply is owned by Fight Fight Fight LLC and CIC Digital LLC.
CIC Digital LLC is an affiliate of The Trump Organization
Fight Fight Fight LLC is a business recently incorporated, whose ownership is undisclosed.
Several reports suggested at the peak that Trump was set to make $58bn, owing to his apparent 80% ownership of the coin. This is misguided because of the following:
The 80% of coins are on a three-year unlocking schedule. The lofty valuation assumes the coins retained the same value as supply multiplied dramatically (simple laws of supply and demand dictate this is unlikely)
With the ownership of Fight Fight Fight LLC undisclosed, Trump’s actual percentage holding of the 80% is also unclear.
Make Crypto Great Again: While the astronomical rise of the $TRUMP coin is impressive, the utility of the coin is next to nil – and has divided opinion among crypto-purists.
Founder of trading platform BitMEX, Arthur Hayes, took to X to assert that “memecoins are the best fan engagement tool ever invented.”
“Prepare your butts for a meme coin explosion,” he added.
Others joined the inevitable scramble to get involved hence the meteoric price rise.
Gambling operator Rivalry added $TRUMP as an accepted payment method, and announced it would look to add further memecoins throughout the quarter.
You Melon(ia): If $TRUMP wasn’t enough, enter $MELANIA. First Lady Melania Trump launched her very own memecoin, although it seems as if the brotherhood didn’t take as kindly to her attempt, with the value being just $4.19 at the time of writing.
Fake News? Trey Walsh of Bitcoin Magazine wrote: “The pump and dump crypto landscape, his goofy coins and NFTs make sense to Trump. In fact, I’m betting he truly believes this is crypto’s purpose, while knowing little about Bitcoin.”
Walsh cited Trump’s keynote address at the Bitcoin Conference where the President ended with “have a good time with your bitcoin and your crypto and everything else that you’re playing with.”
In 2021, Trump said: “Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam. I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.” He added that he wanted the dollar to be “the currency of the world.”
Nobody knows anything: The latest news came on Tuesday with a posting on X linking to press conference comments where Trump said, when asked about the coin: "I don’t know much about it other than I launched it.”
“I heard it was very successful, I haven’t checked it. Where is it today?”
Loose change
Crypto.com has launched services for institutional and advanced traders in the US, resurrecting its institutional-grade cryptocurrency exchange.
Crypto.com exchange customers can trade 300 cryptocurrencies and 480 trading pairs at low latencies, the company said in a statement.
The trading platform features advanced order types and sub-account creation for portfolio management, as well as a robust selection of trading bots that facilitate buying and selling crypto to optimize users’ trading experiences.
USDC stablecoin company Circle has acquired tokenized real-world asset issuer Hashnote. Circle aims to integrate USYC with USDC, its flagship stablecoin, enabling convertibility between cash and yield-bearing collateral on blockchains, the press release said.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has said the major banks are all set to treat crypto like Visa and Apple Pay once they have the regulatory green light.
Meanwhile, an ETF provider called REX Shares has filed for ETFs on TRUMP, BONK and Dogecoin, alongside the usual Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and Solana.
What we’re (not) reading: The content-lite DOGE website.
What we ARE reading: Brian Armstrong, CEO at Coinbase, says the Trump effect “cannot be denied.”
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Armstrong said: “To have the leader of the largest GDP country in the world come out undeniably and say that he wants to be the first crypto president.”
Task force
On your Marks: The new Trump administration has moved quickly to change the tenor of how the SEC oversees the sector, with acting chair Mark Uyeda launching a crypto task force aimed at “developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets.”
The move is in stark contrast to how the SEC operated under the previous Biden administration.
The task force will be led by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce. Uyeda is holding the chair until Paul Atkins gets through the confirmation process but has authorized enforcement resources. According to the SEC announcement, the panel’s task will be to develop a clear set of rules while also addressing issues regarding registration of coins.
“We look forward to working hand-in-hand with the public to foster a regulatory environment that protects investors, facilitates capital formation, fosters market integrity and supports innovation,” Peirce said.
Do better: The press release said the Task Force will collaborate with Commission staff and the public to set the SEC on a “sensible regulatory path that respects the bounds of the law.”
It added that “to date, the SEC has relied primarily on enforcement actions to regulate crypto retroactively and reactively, often adopting novel and untested legal interpretations along the way.”
“Clarity regarding who must register, and practical solutions for those seeking to register, have been elusive.”
“The result has been confusion about what is legal, which creates an environment hostile to innovation and conducive to fraud. The SEC can do better.”
The Task Force’s focus will be to “help the Commission draw clear regulatory lines, provide realistic paths to registration, craft sensible disclosure frameworks and deploy enforcement resources judiciously.”
It will “operate within the statutory framework provided by Congress and will coordinate the provision of technical assistance to Congress as it makes changes to that framework.”
“The Task Force will coordinate with federal departments and agencies, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and state and international counterparts.”
Events calendar
Jan 21-24, We’re all Gonna Make it: 2025, Miami
Feb 3, Digital Assets Forum, London
Feb 11-13, ITEXPO, Fort Lauderdale
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