Meme coins have officially entered the halls of power.
Just a day before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th U.S. President, he and his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, have dropped their meme coins, Official Trump ($TRUMP) and Melania Meme ($MELANIA), sparking a frenzy of reactions on Crypto Twitter.
$TRUMP climbed to a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $72 billion while $MELANIA surged over 12,000% within hours of the launch, per DexScreener data.
However, the meme coin debuts siphoned liquidity from the broader crypto market, leaving Bitcoin (BTC) steady and altcoins struggling to recover.
Popular meme coins such as Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) each slipped around 7% and 6%, respectively, in the last 24 hours, while Pepe Coin (PEPE) saw an even steeper drop, falling 12.6% as per CoinGecko data.
Amid the chaos, opinions varied wildly—from excitement about mass adoption to sharp critiques of ethics and execution.
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, rallied traders to push $TRUMP to a $100 billion market cap. “Degens, let’s celebrate the emperor by sending his meme coin to 100 Billy by Monday,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Bad move for crypto?
Others condemned the move as exploitative and unethical. Coffeezilla, a YouTuber known for exposing crypto scams, didn’t hold back:
“80% of tokens vest to insiders DURING the presidency... “should be” a crime, but crime is legal now, I guess?” he said, blasting the meme coin debuts.
Alpha Prime Capital founder William Scythe accused Trump of prioritizing personal gain over public service:
“This is a very sad day for America when the President realizes he can scam people himself, going from the most anti-crypto to a crypto maniac... scamming his MAGA cult with $TRUMP coin,” Scythe wrote.
Melania’s $MELANIA token faced even sharper backlash. Conor Grogan, head of product business operations at Coinbase, noted:
“This token was handled by a less professional team... the creator wallet was funded via a Solana memecoin launchpad.”
For some, like Caitlin Long, CEO of Custodia Bank, the incident hinted at future regulatory shifts:
“WELL, one of the side effects of meme-coining is that Trump now has a real incentive to change the taxation of #crypto in the US,” Long tweeted.
One step forward, two steps back
For others, the moment represented a step backward:
“This isn’t onboarding. This isn’t education. This isn’t how we build a better future. We have to do better,” lending platform ZeroLend’s co-founder Gafoor Khan wrote on X.
Many traders reflected on SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s past warnings. Pseudonymous crypto trader Ash Crypto tweeted: “I think we all need to say this: we are sorry Gary Gensler, you were right, our space is a joke.”
Yet amid the chaos, Daan Crypto struck a hopeful note about the mid-term possibilities:
“I think the market might enjoy this more than you think in the weeks to come,” the crypto trader wrote. “Especially when something happens where they bring the Trump coin to several chains (including ETH), which would make the entire market go crazy.”
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair