Will Donald Trump, Melania Trump Memecoins Crash Hard After Oath Ceremony?

Forget political opponents, since Donald Trump and Melania Trump are now competing with the likes of Dogecoin and Pepe after launching their memecoins, Official Trump (TRUMP) and Official Melania Meme (MELANIA), over the weekend.

Trump Duo Creates $13 Billion Out of Thin Air — Crypto Industry Reacts

As of Jan. 20 — and just hours ahead of Trump’s inauguration event — these tokens collectively were worth over $13 billion. As memecoins, they derive their valuations out of thin air, riding high only on people’s speculation about them.

At their peaks, TRUMP and MELANIA together valued 17.88 billion.

Critics, therefore, quickly raised red flags.

Watchdogs slammed the tokens as another example of Trump leveraging his political position for personal gain, comparing them to past accusations of foreign spending on Trump properties and NFTs.

That includes Michael A. Gayad, a crypto market analyst, who called Trump and his wife’s venture into the memecoin sector a “f***ing disgrace.”

Unpopular opinion: what Trump is doing with $TRUMP and $MELANIA is A FUCKING DISGRACE.

— Michael A. Gayed, CFA (@leadlagreport) January 19, 2025

On-chain analysts, at the same time, attacked the Trump pair for having excessive control over their memecoin supply.

Blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps revealed in a Jan. 19 post on X that nearly 90% of the MELANIA token supply is concentrated in a single wallet, contradicting the project’s claims about its token distribution.

Coinbase executive Conor Grogan highlighted that the wallet behind MELANIA’s creation was funded by another wallet active on Solana’s memecoin launchpad, Pump.fun.

This Melania coin which launched a few minutes ago (and is worth a few billion) appears to be structured differently than TRUMP.

Creator wallet was funded by a wallet that traded on PumpFun, and there is no sign of a multisig (Trump had one setup pre-launch) pic.twitter.com/RZjS0sTiCS

— Conor (@jconorgrogan) January 19, 2025

Additionally, an anonymous crypto developer known as “cygaar” pointed out that developers hastily launched the MELANIA token’s official website on Jan. 18, given it lacks protection from cybersecurity provider Cloudflare and features poorly written front-end code.

Intellectual property rights to the website melaniameme.com are owned by MKT World LLC, a company established by Mrs. Trump in 2021. According to Florida Department of State records, MKT World LLC shares a business address with the Trump International Golf Club.

Trump Memecoins Are “Pump-and-Dump” Tokens — Analyst

Gayed criticized the $TRUMP token on X, calling it a “pump-and-dump” scheme and claiming that Trump’s credibility has been “totally destroyed.”

Delphi Labs co-founder José Maria Macedo echoed similar concerns in a Jan. 19 post on X, suggesting that insiders behind $TRUMP underestimated the token’s potential rise and either sold too early or didn’t accumulate enough.

“They scrambled to launch $MELANIA to make sure they secured their profits this time,” Macedo wrote, adding:

“In their greed, they wiped out $30 billion in value, turned the optics into blatant grift, and likely committed several legal violations in the process.”

Is It Worth It to Trade TRUMP, MELANIA Memecoins?

The meteoric rise and subsequent backlash against $TRUMP and $MELANIA underscore a well-documented pattern in the cryptocurrency market: memecoins tied to celebrities or public figures often come with significant risks.

Historical precedents show that while such tokens are often hyped as lucrative opportunities, they frequently lead to losses for traders caught in speculative frenzies.

For instance, celebrity-endorsed tokens like EthereumMax—promoted by Kim Kardashian—faced regulatory action, leaving many investors deep in the red.

Similarly, sports clubs’ fan tokens, such as those launched by football teams, have shown dramatic price volatility, often spiking on hype before crashing as interest fades.

These projects typically suffer from concentrated token supplies and poor transparency, exposing most investors to manipulation by insiders or early adopters.

The $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens fit this mold. With nearly 90% of MELANIA’s supply held in a single wallet, per blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps, and questionable on-chain activity linked to its creation, the projects seem to prioritize insider benefits over investor interests.

Therefore, there is a huge possibility that Trump and MELANIA will see extreme profit-taking behavior in their respective markets after Trump’s oath ceremony.

Nonetheless, their future price projections depend entirely on how Trump navigates his pro-crypto policies during his presidency — even though, fundamentally, the memecoins are backed by nothing but celebrity endorsements.