Trump memecoin drops 25% as US president doesn’t mention crypto during inauguration speech

Crypto traders watched Donald Trump’s inauguration speech with bated breath on Monday — and came away disappointed.

In a 30-minute outline of his policy priorities in his second term as president, Trump didn’t mention crypto.

Trump’s official memecoin dropped 25% over one hour to a low of $38, according to CoinGecko.

It’s now recovered to about $41 and has a total value of $8.2 billion.

The crypto markets dipped as well. Bitcoin dropped by 5% over one hour to above $101,000 and now trades around $103,000.

Trump’s crypto conversion

Trump’s inauguration speech comes shortly after the US president launched his own memecoin on Friday.

The token quickly rocketed in price, and, at its peak, was valued at more than $14 billion, according to CoinGecko.

On Sunday, Melania Trump, now the first lady, announced her token, which jumped to a high of almost $2 billion in total value in mere hours.

Donald Trump’s full-throated embrace of crypto is a remarkable about-face for a politician who once called Bitcoin “a scam against the dollar.”

As the crypto industry flexed its political muscle in the 2024 elections and threw more than $130 million up and down federal ballots, Trump changed his tune and began to openly court industry executives.

“If you’re in favour of crypto you’re gonna vote for Trump,” he said during a May event at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Two months later, Trump spoke at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville. Among his promises, he pledged to create a US Bitcoin strategic reserve.

And in September, he and his sons launched a token issuance for their own DeFi platform: World Liberty Financial, which is purportedly a stablecoin issuer.

While the project’s initial sales were lackluster, it met its initial goal to sell 20 billion tokens just hours before Trump’s inauguration.

World Liberty Financial plans to release another tranche of tokens that, if completely sold, would net $250 million.

Ben Weiss is DL News’ Dubai Correspondent. Got a tip? Email bweiss@dlnews.com.