Donald Trump Is Selling More NFTs—And the Original Sets Are Crashing Again

It was around this time last year that former United States President Donald Trump released his first set of digital trading cards as NFTs, igniting both buzz and mockery—and generating millions of dollars in sales. After a second round last spring, he’s back again with the largest set of NFTs to date… but the market doesn’t appear to be responding favorably.

Launched Tuesday, the Trump Digital Trading Cards: MugShot Edition collection includes 100,000 total NFT collectibles minted on Polygon, an Ethereum scaling network, and priced at $99 each. The first set contained 45,000 NFTs while the second set had 47,000.

The collection’s framing refers to Trump being indicted on charges by the State of Georgia in August, and having his mugshot taken in Atlanta. He’s since used the photo to sell merchandise and raise funding for his presidential campaign, and now it’s part of the look and branding of his latest NFTs. But that’s not all.

As with the previous sets, NFT INT LLC—which licensed Trump’s name and likeness for the official collection—is bundling in various perks for buyers who purchase a large number of the cards. One of the perks is a physical trading card that includes a piece of the suit he wore in the mugshot, which the company claims has been cut into thousands of little pieces.

Collectors who buy 47 of the NFT cards in a single transaction—$4,653 before fees—will be mailed one of the physical cards, which may or may not be signed by Trump. And anyone who buys 100 NFT cards at once ($9,900 worth) and pays with cryptocurrency will receive two physical cards, along with VIP tickets to a gala dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Calling himself “your favorite president” in a promotional video, Trump highlights the various perks, acknowledges the cartoonish artwork exaggerates his physical qualities, and details his suit’s journey from mugshot to shredded collectible.

“It was a great suit, believe me—a really good suit. It’s all cut up, and you’re gonna get a piece of it,” Trump says in the video. He concludes: “Go right now and collect your own exclusive piece of American history, and we’ll all have fun together. Have a nice life.”

Given that the previous NFT collections sold out in the primary sale, it makes sense that Trump would want to go back to this well again—especially with a potential take of nearly $10 million.

However, will his fans want to purchase them and invest further in the project? The second batch, released in April, immediately impacted the secondary market value of the original NFTs, which crashed in price by over 50% in a matter of hours and ultimately fell to a fraction of the all-time high starting price of $1,079.

Now it’s happening all over again. According to data from NFT Price Floor, the cheapest listed Trump NFT from the original series has fallen by 18% today to a current price of $396 worth of Ethereum, rebounding from a 33% plunge to $319 earlier Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Series 2 cards have lost 34% of their value in a drop to just $61—under the original $99 asking price.

Interestingly, the Collect Trump Cards website claims that the latest NFT cards are non-transferrable until December 31, giving the creators until the end of the month before the market can decide their value. We’ll see if they sell out before then. About 8,000 have been minted so far, according to data from the OpenSea marketplace.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.