Donald Trump’s memecoin has lost more than 90 percent of its value over the past year from its peak—a sign of how quickly the hype around the controversial cryptocurrency linked to the U.S. president has faded.
The $TRUMP token was launched in January last year, on the eve of Trump’s inauguration. In the first days of trading, its price, according to CoinMarketCap, briefly surged from $1.20 to $75.35. A year later, the coin is trading at around $4.86, implying a 94 percent drop from its peak.
A few days after the launch of $TRUMP, the president’s wife, Melania Trump, introduced her own memecoin. Its price climbed to $13.73, but has since fallen to just below $0.15, according to CoinMarketCap—a 99 percent decline from its high.
Daily peak price of the Trump memecoin, U.S. dollars
The sharp collapse in token prices has left investors who bought at the peak with substantial losses and is likely to intensify criticism of the president’s cryptocurrency ventures. As a recent Financial Times investigation found, the Trump family’s crypto activities generated more than $1 billion in pre-tax profits.
Investor interest in memecoins peaked in late 2023 and early 2024. These highly volatile tokens can be launched by anyone online—they have no intrinsic value, business model, or cash flow. Their appeal rests solely on popularity and association with viral moments or well-known figures, which in turn fuels speculative demand.
Despite the sharp price drop, $TRUMP remains the world’s fifth-largest memecoin by market capitalization, according to CoinMarketCap data.
The president’s and his wife’s memecoins have drawn sharp criticism from figures within the crypto industry, governance experts, and Democrats. They have been accused of using the tokens as a vehicle for quick profit and of abusing political power.
The precise allocation of profits among participants in these projects remains unclear. However, a Financial Times investigation found that the $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins generated roughly $427 million from sales and trading fees.
After returning to the White House, Trump moved aggressively to back the crypto industry—appointing regulators seen as friendly to the market and pardoning some convicted figures. The president himself and members of his family have also launched several cryptocurrency ventures.
Governance specialists argue that the baseline rules for regulating the U.S. crypto market being drafted in Washington should include strict safeguards to prevent conflicts of interest among public officials. Several organizations, including Democracy Defenders Action and the Project on Government Oversight, sent a letter to the Senate last week urging lawmakers to codify a ban preventing the president and other senior officials from owning or trading cryptocurrencies.
Otherwise, the system “could be exploited by those in power, exposing ordinary investors to the risks of fraud, manipulation, and abuse,” the authors of the appeal wrote, pointing to the range of crypto projects linked to the Trump family.
Meanwhile, companies associated with Trump are shifting toward new initiatives. Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates the Truth Social platform and is controlled by the president’s family, plans to issue a new crypto token for shareholders on February 2—as part of an agreement with the Crypto.com exchange.