Political Meme Coins Surge After Trump Libertarian Convention Speech

Former U.S. president Donald Trump's appearance at the Libertarian National Convention may have resulted in him being heckled and jeered, but it's given political meme coins a shot in the arm.

The Trump-themed MAGA Hat (MAGA) cryptocurrency has surged by over 150% in the past 24 hours, while the MAGA (TRUMP) meme coin is up by a more modest 12.7% overnight.

Intriguingly, the ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE) token is also up by 4.7%. Originally created as a governance token for a now-defunct DAO aiming to buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution at auction, it's now effectively become a politics-themed meme coin, having no utility after the project had "run its course."

Following Trump's appearance at the Libertarian National Convention, which saw the crowd repeatedly booing throughout his speech, the prospective Republican candidate took to his social media platform Truth Social to talk up the "enthusiasm" of the crowd.

During his speech, Trump pledged to commute the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht if elected. Silk Road was a peer-to-peer darknet marketplace that used Bitcoin to facilitate the sale of drugs and other illicit materials; Ulbricht was sentenced to two life sentences without parole in 2015 on money laundering, fraud and drugs charges.

It's not the first time Trump has mulled over Ulbricht's situation; following his 2020 election defeat, he reportedly considered granting clemency to the Silk Road founder as part of a round of pardons ahead of the January 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden. In the event, he did not do so.

Trump attempted to position himself as a pro-crypto candidate during the speech, vowing to end Joe Biden's "crusade to crush crypto" and prevent the creation of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Edited by Stacy Elliott.