background
In the Web3 era, Meme tokens have become a concentrated performance venue for community sentiment and speculative psychology. In January 2025, Trump announced the launch of his personal Meme coin $TRUMP on the eve of his inauguration as US President. This move once pushed the price of the coin to soar wildly, causing shocks at the global social, financial and political levels. In just 48 hours, a very small number of pioneers on the chain quickly locked in huge profits, while more retail investors who followed the trend became high-level buyers, feeling the ice and fire brought by the celebrity effect and rapid speculation.
Compared with any previous meme coin craze, in this uproar, we have seen the victory of speculative capital, and also the embarrassing reality that the traditional financial order and government ethics are being put on the spot.
1. Research Background and Market Overview
1.1 The rise of Meme tokens and the evolution of Web3 ecosystem
Meme: From Internet memes to financial products
Since the birth of Internet culture, a large number of memes and subculture symbols have been spawned. These symbols have gained explosive social influence due to their humor, magic or easy spread. Some memes will be constantly forwarded or even adapted on forums and social media, gradually evolving into popular symbols among groups.
With the development of blockchain and decentralized finance (DeFi), the combination of Meme+token has successfully combined culture and finance, resulting in a series of phenomenal projects such as Dogecoin, Shiba Inucoin, and Pepe. Such projects do not necessarily have technical support or practical applications in the traditional sense, but rely on the spontaneous enthusiasm of online communities and the blessing of celebrities to form an extremely prosperous market response in a short period of time.
It is worth noting that blockchain is a decentralized database or ledger, and each transaction is verified and recorded by multiple nodes in the network. Meme tokens do not provide payment, settlement and other functions on this ledger, but are more of a ticket or symbol, and their value is entirely determined by community consensus.
The evolution and dilemma of Web3 ecosystem
Web3 gives ordinary people more opportunities to control financial assets and data, and makes it easier for small teams or individuals to create popular projects. Anyone can issue their own tokens based on blockchain smart contracts. As long as they find enough people who agree with them or speculate on them, they may achieve a big explosion in a short period of time. However, problems such as lack of supervision, frequent bubbles, and uneven project quality cannot be ignored.
1.2 Release and core highlights of $TRUMP
Release time
The issuance time is set for the evening of January 17, 2025 (Eastern Time). This is because the issuance of cryptocurrencies does not require complicated administrative approvals. As long as the smart contract is deployed on the blockchain, the tokens can be quickly brought to the market. Therefore, anyone who wants can technically quickly create a set of tokens and sell them to the public.
Team and Token Structure
$TRUMP was jointly launched by Trump family-affiliated companies (such as Fight Fight Fight LLC, CIC Digital LLC, etc.). The team holds 80% of the token shares, and the remaining 20% is available for public trading through on-chain liquidity pools or centralized exchanges.
This token distribution model contains huge room for manipulation: if the team sells off or unlocks tokens in advance in the subsequent stage, the price of the token will fluctuate violently in a short period of time. Ordinary retail investors cannot compete with these large holders because the amount of tokens held by retail investors is negligible in comparison.
Social and Media Focus
This type of coin issuance is unprecedented in the history of cryptocurrency and instantly topped the hot lists of traditional media and social media. Global media followed up with reports, and Wall Street financial institutions could not avoid this explosive news. Some institutions even began to study whether to include $TRUMP in their speculative targets. At the same time, a large number of ordinary people are also trying to participate, hoping to get a share of the short-term operation.
2. $TRUMP related data
2.1 Token issuance information and chain overview
Before we officially enter the research of the subsequent chapters, we first sort out the specific issuance information, on-chain data and community performance of the $TRUMP token. The token was deployed on the Solana chain on January 18, 2025, with the contract address 6p6xgHyF7AeE6TZkSmFsko444wqoP15icUSqi2jfGiPN, and was launched at an initial price of $0.1824. In just 36 hours, the price hit an all-time high of $75. As of February 10, it has fallen back to around $16 after several days of violent fluctuations.
It is worth noting that the market value of the token climbed to $3.2 billion within just a few hours of its launch, and then fell back 50% within a few days. This dramatic rise and fall fully confirms the typical characteristics of the so-called Meme token that relies on public sentiment and cultural connections rather than traditional economic fundamentals.
2.2 Issuance Mechanism and Centralization Risk
Contract security and economic concerns
In the Token Ecosystem Analysis section, $TRUMPs smart contract has passed the security audit, the risk level is rated as low risk, and the code is completely open source. Although no serious vulnerabilities have been found at the contract level, from an economic perspective, its issuance and distribution mechanism is highly centralized: up to 80% of the tokens are held by internal team members, and only 20% are publicly circulated, and are unlocked in installments.
Tips: This distribution model means that if a team or a large investor sells at a specific time, it will be difficult for ordinary retail investors or small and medium-sized funds to compete with them, and market liquidity will suffer a serious impact, causing a flash crash or extreme rebound in prices. This is similar to the situation of large shareholders manipulating market expectations in traditional economics.
Trading data and market fluctuations
From the “initial surge” period from January 18 to 19, the token price increased by more than 40,000%, followed by a correction of about 50% from January 20 to 22, and a continuous decline from January 23. As of this article, there was a “big reshuffle” from February 4 to February 10, with the price fluctuating between $15 and $20.
According to the liquidity distribution of decentralized exchanges, Jupiter, Raydium and Orca provide a total of about $420 million in locked value, with an average daily trading volume of about $270 million. Although the token liquidity is not overly dependent on a single DEX (Jupiter accounts for 45%, Raydium 30%, Orca 25%), in terms of activity, $TRUMP has lost the high turnover rate in the early outbreak stage.
2.3 User Profile and Market Structure
Position Concentration
User portrait analysis shows that 12 large addresses (accounting for 80.2%) control almost all the chips; 156 medium addresses (0.1% ~ 1%) hold a total of 14.5% of the tokens; although there are as many as 142,583 retail addresses, they only account for 5.3% of the circulation. This structure reflects that the phenomenon of wealth concentration is extremely serious. Most retail investors are in a weak position in the market and have little influence on the price trend of the currency.
Trader Characteristics
Data shows that high-frequency trading accounts for about 23%, and these accounts can quickly arbitrage or stop losses when the market fluctuates; another 72% of users are engaged in short-term speculation, and only 5% claim to be long-term holders. It can be seen that most participants regard $TRUMP as a speculative game rather than a sustainable investment target.
2.4 Social Media and Community Popularity
Public Opinion and Sentiment Analysis
According to statistics, the average daily mention volume on Twitter is about 52,731 times, the video playback volume on TikTok is as high as 270 million, and the number of active users on Discord is 89,651. The results of sentiment analysis show that positive sentiment is 45%, negative sentiment is 25%, and the difference between the two is only 20%, and neutral attitude is 30%.
In finance, sentiment indicators are often viewed as leading or lagging signals of price:
If negative sentiment continues to ferment, it may trigger collective panic selling;
If positive sentiment regains focus, the currency price may see a second sharp rise.
“Public Opinion-Capital Flow-Coin Price” Closed Loop
From the perspectives of technology, economy, and community ecology, it can be seen that although $TRUMP claims that the contract is highly secure, its issuance model and position structure still amplify market sentiment, making the price of the currency more affected by a few large investors and short-term speculators. The continued voice of social media exacerbates fluctuations, forming a cycle of public opinion-capital flow-currency price fluctuations.
Reminder to ordinary investors:
In addition to paying attention to large transfers and unlocking processes on the chain, you should also pay close attention to social media and sentiment indicators to avoid being trapped at high levels or missing out on opportunities for short-term surges.
3. In-depth market analysis
3.1 Token Technology and Ecosystem Architecture
Contract deployment and chain selection
Official information shows that $TRUMP is deployed on the Solana chain. Trump himself previously discussed Bitcoin and Ethereum more, but he finally chose Solana, which was somewhat unexpected. There are rumors that the head of the Presidential Advisory Committee (Crypto Tsar) is very close to the Solana team and provides technical support and liquidity facilities for the project.
Solana is known for its high throughput and low transaction fees, and is suitable for large-scale concurrent trading scenarios, which also creates conditions for $TRUMP to gather a large number of buy and sell orders in a short period of time.
Trading and liquidity mechanisms
$TRUMP is traded through Moonshot, decentralized exchanges (Dex), and subsequent centralized platforms such as Gate.io. Because everyone flocked to it in the early days, and each transaction needed to be confirmed in the blockchain network, many people felt that the transaction was congested, and some transaction fees were even much higher than expected.
Some reports pointed out that the large number of transactions on the chain in the early stage brought high commission income to the Trump team. Some people suspect that this is also a water extraction method designed by the project party, because the team may share the profits with the platform or mining pool, and the specific details are not disclosed.
Related Projects
Melania followed suit and issued $MELANIA, further linking the overall image of the Trump family with cryptocurrency. The Trump family has also made many moves in the NFT field before, issuing multiple sets of themed NFTs. The industry speculates that more family members or trusted bosses may launch new tokens in the future, and even form a Trump metaverse ecosystem.
Tips: NFT (non-fungible token) is different from ordinary cryptocurrencies. It represents a unique digital asset, such as art or collectible cards, and cannot be interchanged in equal amounts like BTC or ETH. But the similarity is that NFT is also based on blockchain smart contracts and relies on market popularity and scarcity for pricing.
3.2 Market Performance and Price Madness
Day 1 (1.17 – 1.18): “Pioneers” eat meat
Within hours after the release of $TRUMP, the price surged from less than $1 to $14~$23, attracting a lot of attention. Professional traders who are familiar with the hot spots on the chain captured the project in advance by monitoring the smart contract address and purchased a large number of cheap chips before the launch. Some people realized several times or even dozens of times the profit in just half a day.
The community generally speculated: Was Trumps account hacked? This is ridiculous. But the official has never clarified it, which has led more people to believe that this incident was indeed done by Trumps team, and speculative sentiment has been further fueled.
High point (1.19): Listing on the exchange triggers the final sprint
Mainstream exchanges such as Gate.io announced the launch of $TRUMP spot trading, allowing many US retail investors and even traditional stock market investors to enter the market more conveniently. Driven by buying orders, the price reached a high of $60-$75, and the total market value once exceeded $75 billion.
In just two days, at least 400 addresses with profits exceeding one million US dollars appeared on the chain. At the same time, a larger number of new users rushed to the high position, and faced the subsequent plunge after taking over.
Here we should note that when a token is listed on a large CEX, it often means that the depth and trading volume of the secondary market will increase significantly. However, this is often the shipping opportunity for early players, because they can transfer the cheap coins they bought on the chain to the exchange and sell them to newcomers.
Big pullback (1.20 – 1.21): “Melania’s gun” + capital outflow
Melania also issued $MELANIA at this time, which attracted some funds. In addition, the Trump team may sell at a high level, causing $TRUMP to be cut in half to $35-$40 in just a few hours. The market sentiment quickly turned from enthusiasm to panic. New retail investors were upset that they were tricked by the president, and the community was dissatisfied and questioned.
Stable phase (1.25 – 2.12): Continued bottoming out
During this period, the price fluctuation of $TRUMP gradually stabilized, maintaining between $26 and $16. According to on-chain data, from January 25 to February 12, the intraday volatility of the token dropped sharply from more than 100% to about 30%, while the average daily trading volume stabilized between $150 million and $200 million. During this period, high-frequency trading activities decreased significantly. Data showed that only about 15% of accounts traded frequently during this period, while the holdings of most retail accounts were basically stagnant. About 78% of FOMO investors failed to exit in time, indicating that they were trapped.
In addition, social media sentiment has also seen a significant correction: the gap between positive and negative sentiment was only 20% during the early hot discussions, while at this stage, positive sentiment remained at around 45% and negative sentiment rose to about 40%, indicating that the market has gradually shifted from fanatical speculation to rational scrutiny. Overall, although $TRUMP has not completely deviated from the path of a rapid decline after the meme coin pump, the data shows that the market is entering a period of adjustment, capital flows and investor behavior are tending to balance, and price fluctuations are gradually returning to rationality.
3.3 On-chain data and capital flows
Whales vs. Retail Investors
According to statistics on the chain, 80% is held by the team or associated addresses, and a considerable proportion of the remaining 20% is concentrated in the hands of a few large holders, so the overall control is extremely high. The average holding amount of most retail investors is extremely low, and once the main force makes a slight move, the price will fluctuate greatly.
Many latecomers bought in at an average price far higher than the issue price, which is called being stuck at the top of the mountain. Some people hold on to their coins until now in the hope of doubling their returns, while others reluctantly cut their losses.
Asia vs. the United States: Time Zone Difference and Opportunities
When the $TRUMP contract was announced, it was daytime in Asia, but late at night in the United States. The difference in information flow gave Asian traders time to rush in first, while investors in the eastern United States saw the news in the morning when the price had already doubled. Data shows that among the addresses that made millions of dollars in profits in the early stage, nearly half came from the Chinese community.
Unlike traditional financial markets, the cryptocurrency market trades 24/7, and blockchain trading is synchronized globally. Time zone differences often determine fate in short-term market conditions - Asian mornings often correspond to late nights in America, and vice versa. Whoever can watch the market longer often has the upper hand.
Trading volume and “water buyers”
Moonshot, a trading platform that focuses on Meme coins, once topped the North American App market download list, and the OTC market was also extremely active. Many newcomers found that they could not understand the on-chain wallet and exchange process, and they all sought help from experts. So some people made money by selling water and charged teaching fees by hand-in-hand with you to buy $TRUMP, and they also made a lot of money in a short period of time.
Tips: The so-called water seller refers to the people who sell shovels and supplies during the gold rush. The same is true in the crypto world: when a large number of retail investors rush into the market, the group that provides training, technical services or coin evaluation can also make a lot of money. It has nothing to do with the rise and fall of tokens, they are more about information gap.
4. Social Impact and Cultural Analysis
4.1 Just 48 hours: an “adventure narrative” of a zero-sum speculative game
Senior players on the chain often prepare monitoring tools and idle funds. Once they find a potential project, they can quickly enter the market and then cash out at a high point. Some people show off their doubled or even dozens of times of returns on social media, stimulating more ordinary investors to join, forming a typical secondary and tertiary takeover chain.
Everyone is worried about missing out on the next great opportunity, and some are even willing to go bankrupt, sell their cars and houses, or mortgage other assets to raise money to enter the market. The mentality of getting rich overnight is prevalent in the community.
Tips: FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is the abbreviation of Fear of Missing Out, which refers to people blindly chasing the rise due to the fear of losing opportunities. Meme coin market often uses this psychology to create explosive rises and then suddenly fall back.
Many people who participate in cryptocurrency for the first time do not have professional trading or blockchain knowledge. After rushing into the market, they either immediately chase high prices and get trapped, or feel confused and lost due to the drastic market fluctuations.
Traditional and crypto media have focused heavily on $TRUMP, reporting on it in a lot of joking or surprising ways, but serious discussions are relatively limited. Bitcoin Magazine, Messari founder and other industry leaders have publicly questioned Trumps abuse of his influence and his use of blockchain technology to make money in disguise, which has not only hit the confidence of some retail investors, but also cast doubt on the credibility of the crypto industry.
V. Risk and Opportunity Analysis
5.1 Main risks
Legal and regulatory risks
If the relevant judicial authorities intervene in the investigation, they may order the exchange to remove $TRUMP or freeze related wallets. If the team is found to be suspected of insider trading or conflict of interest, the project owner and investors will face huge losses. There has been no similar case of presidential coin issuance in the past, and the unknown legal vacuum brings higher uncertainty.
Concentrated holdings and potential manipulation by project owners
The team and related big players hold 80% of the tokens. If they decide to sell, billions of dollars in market value can be evaporated within a few hours. It is difficult for ordinary investors to predict when the market crash will occur.
The cryptocurrency market often changes rapidly, and traders’ lack of transparency into the team’s plans is like “flying with their eyes closed”, which can end badly.
Market sentiment and confidence collapsed
Meme tokens mainly rely on community confidence and sentiment. Once public opinion reverses or other new hot tokens emerge, market enthusiasm will drop sharply and prices will experience a stampede-like decline.
Derivative coins such as $MELANIA may suck blood from each other with $TRUMP, and investors will frequently migrate between different coins, causing instability in the entire sector.
5.2 Development Opportunities
Traffic explosion and influx of new users
The popularity of $TRUMP has attracted a large number of traditional financial and novice users, allowing them to get in touch with the blockchain ecosystem for the first time. Some people may continue to explore broader areas such as DeFi and NFT after short-term speculation, which may bring more innovation and application opportunities to the crypto industry.
Regulatory acceleration and compliance progress
The high profile and controversy of this incident may force U.S. lawmakers to respond positively to the legality of public figures participation in encryption projects, and also make the regulatory rules for the encryption market clearer earlier.
If compliance can be implemented, it may help the industry eliminate fraud and Ponzi schemes and improve overall quality in the long run.
The continued expansion of the meme track
Celebrities in politics and business circles may follow suit and issue coins, further promoting the prosperity of the Meme track. If investors can seize the outbreak node of popular topics first, the short-term returns will still be considerable. However, with the celebrity effect and social media dissemination, the speed of the new coin bubble will be generated and burst more quickly.
6. Investment strategy recommendations
6.1 Short-term strategy (1 – 3 months)
High-frequency trading and on-chain monitoring
If you want to get involved in $TRUMP and other similar meme coins, you need to have professional on-chain monitoring capabilities to track whale addresses and team coin transfers in a timely manner. Once a large transfer or abnormal selling order is found, a buying and selling decision must be made quickly. The following are common monitoring methods and tools:
Block Explorer
Solscan / Solana Explorer (for $TRUMP on Solana)
Etherscan (if there is a cross-chain bridge or other related contracts on Ethereum)
By entering the contract address or whale wallet address, you can view transaction dynamics and balance changes in real time.
Professional data analysis platform
Nansen: Provides on-chain tag analysis to identify addresses such as whales and smart funds and track their operations.
Dune Analytics: Users can customize dashboards to visualize analysis of specific contracts or addresses.
DeBank: Aggregates multi-chain asset information to facilitate monitoring of large-scale holdings and capital flows.
Social media and alert robots
Twitter/Telegram early warning robots (such as Whale Alert): can push large transfer and unlocking events in real time, helping investors quickly learn about possible market crash or pull signals.
Set up stop loss and take profit
Blindly chasing high prices is prone to flash crashes. You should formulate and strictly implement a stop-profit and stop-loss strategy in advance to prevent yourself from being unable to exit when the trading volume drops sharply. Specifically, you can consider:
Price trigger:
Take-profit point: If the price rises by 50% to 100% after purchase, sell part of the position in batches or all at once to lock in profits.
Stop loss point: If the price of the currency drops by 10% to 20% (or more) from the purchase point, the position will be automatically reduced or closed to avoid being deeply locked in.
Time trigger:
If a major event (team unlocking, macro negatives) is expected to occur in the short term (such as 3 to 7 days), you can reduce your position in advance and wait and see.
Position management:
The investment in high-risk assets such as Meme coins only accounts for 5% to 10% of the total funds to prevent the overall funds from experiencing excessive fluctuations.
Comprehensive information judgment
In addition to the large transfer and unlocking process on the chain, you should also pay close attention to the following factors:
Social Media Volume and Sentiment
Has the popularity of social networks such as Twitter, Discord, and Telegram declined or increased significantly?
Are big Vs or KOLs starting to turn bearish or bullish?
Team announcements and external news
Will the team announce any new unlocking or destruction plans?
Is there any negative news or regulatory pressure related to the project?
Market Environment
Are the mainstream currencies (BTC, ETH, etc.) in a state of volatility or decline, affecting the risk appetite of funds?
Are other new meme coins experiencing a “blood-sucking effect”, causing $TRUMP funds to drain away?
Small positions, fast in and fast out
Since $TRUMP lacks real application scenarios, its price is mainly driven by news or community sentiment. It is recommended to invest only a small amount of money that can afford to lose, mainly for swing trading, and not to have too high expectations of the intrinsic value of the project. The 100x myth often cannot last long.
6.2 Medium to long term strategy (3 – 12 months)
Pay attention to team unlocking and regulatory trends
Whether the team can quickly unlock the coins they hold, or whether there is a large-scale over-the-counter sale, is the key to determining the future market. If the US government launches an investigation or imposes legislative restrictions, prices may remain depressed for a long time. Investors should closely follow relevant policy developments and carefully evaluate the holding period.
Decentralization combined with value coins
For those who are not familiar with the Meme track, they can allocate their main assets in relatively mature blockchain projects such as BTC and ETH, and try Meme coins as a high-risk side track.
As Meme coins emerge in large numbers, staying vigilant, collecting information and managing risks will help you respond promptly to sudden market fluctuations.
VII. Future Outlook and Thoughts
7.1 Industry Trends: From Speculative Performance to Ecological Reshuffle
Meme coin super cycle and retail investor frenzy
$TRUMP may further strengthen retail investors’ trust in the “celebrity effect” or prompt more politicians to follow suit. However, high-frequency speculation and sharp rises and falls also make people lose enthusiasm faster, leading to a reshuffle and differentiation in the industry.
The U.S. government is accelerating its collision with crypto regulation
The presidents personal issuance of the coin has forced the U.S. government to face a new situation: How can officials or candidates profit from the virtual asset field? How are legislation or executive orders applied? This may lead to strict control of capital inflows and outflows, and may also cause more institutions to examine the legality and compliance of encryption projects.
Rethinking the DeFi ecosystem and financial innovation
Crypto finance can break the high threshold of traditional finance, but it can also be exploited by a few people. Extreme cases like $TRUMP lead the industry to think: Can DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) strengthen information disclosure? Can contract auditing curb abuse? How to prevent the public from being ruthlessly harvested in the wave of speculation?
7.2 Economic and social impacts
Economic aspects
In a very short period of time, a large amount of funds flowed from other crypto assets to $TRUMP, causing mainstream coins and some altcoins to be sucked. If retail investors suffer heavy losses, it may have a chain reaction on the overall investment and consumption willingness.
Social level
The group enthusiasm and cognitive bias of social media have been amplified again, and many people have a deeper impression of the crypto industry as a speculative bubble. At the same time, peoples tolerance for public officials monetizing their influence has also been tested in this incident.
8. Conclusion and Recommendations
The rise and fall of $TRUMP have shown that Meme tokens can trigger unprecedented capital flows, and have also fully exposed the lack of spontaneous regulation and ethical norms in the crypto industry. With the US president personally stepping down, retail investors have been trapped at high levels due to blind trust, and a large amount of funds have flowed to a very small number of large accounts in a short period of time. How to remain rational in the speculative craze and how to come up with countermeasures at the level of government ethics and compliance are issues that the current crypto world has to think about.
Research recommendations:
Use the DAO mechanism to enhance transparency: Decentralized autonomous organizations should launch community-based risk disclosure and information disclosure tools when issuing similar tokens to reduce information asymmetry among retail investors.
Investors need to keep in mind the high-risk nature of Meme tokens: although the market may bring short-term huge profits, it lacks real value support and is prone to rapid rises and falls. Strict stop-loss and psychological expectations are required.
References
Solana Explorer (Solscan / Explorer.solana.com)
Moonshot Platform Announcements and Trading Volume
CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko
Trumps official account (Truth / Twitter)
Bitcoin Magazine, Messari founder comments
LatePost’s tracking and analysis of the 48-hour transaction process of the incident
Beijing Yingke Law Firms Issues on Crypto Assets of U.S. Public Officials
Multiple investors/traders share their experience on Meme tokens and political coin ecosystem
Disclaimer:
This content does not constitute any offer, solicitation, or recommendation. You should always seek independent professional advice before making any investment decision. Please note that Gate.io may restrict or prohibit all or part of its services from restricted regions. Please read the User Agreement for more information, link: https://www.gate.io/en/user-agreement .
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