Key Takeaways

• TRUMP token has surpassed Pepe and Shiba Inu to become the second-largest meme coin.
• The token experienced criticism over its distribution, with 80% owned by Trump Organization-linked companies.

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TRUMP, a newly launched meme coin created by President-elect Donald Trump, has flipped Pepe (PEPE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) to become the second-largest meme tokens in terms of market cap, CoinGecko data shows. The milestone was reached just over a day after launch.With a current market cap of around $13.5 billion, TRUMP only trails Dogecoin (DOGE), the popular meme coin and favorite of Elon Musk, co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the incoming Trump administration. Dogecoin’s market value sits at around $54 billion as of the latest data.

Trump’s official meme coin was introduced on Truth Social and X on Friday night, two days ahead of his inauguration. He described the token launch as a celebration of his ideals and a symbol of “WINNING.”The token’s valuation escalated to around $8 billion in less than three hours of launch. In the following hours, its prices blew past $30 upon a wave of listings on popular crypto exchanges like Upbit, HTX, Kraken, Gate.io, OKX, and Binance.On Saturday night, Coinbase announced adding TRUMP to its listing roadmap, a move indicating that the major exchange is considering listing the token in the future.Support from major trading platforms has further fueled TRUMP’s bullish momentum. The token has doubled in value after Coinbase’s announcement. At the time of writing, one TRUMP is worth around $69, representing a 230% increase over 24 hours.During the same timeframe, DOGE and SHIB were down around 7% each, while PEPE lost 11% of its value. The broad meme coin market was in sharp decline with most tokens posting double-digit losses, wiping out their recent gains.Unlike other leading meme coins, Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) continues to grow and maintain its gains at press time.Ongoing controversyThere’s a lot of excitement—and skepticism—surrounding Trump’s unexpected token launch. A whopping 80% are held by companies tied to the Trump Organization creates a highly centralized environment. It raises serious concerns about market manipulation, potential for rug pulls, and the long-term viability of the project.Stephen Findeisen, widely known as Coffeezilla, a YouTuber and investigative journalist known for his work in exposing scams and fraudulent schemes, called the release of TRUMP “nasty work.”Many of Trump’s supporters, especially those who may not be well-versed in crypto, could face financial losses, according to Findeisen.

> dropping TRUMP memecoin 2 days before becoming president is nasty work
> new SEC/DOJ guarantees no prosecution
> 80% of tokens vest to insiders DURING the presidency
> most ppl losing money will be MAGA who aren’t crypto native
> *should* be a crime but crime is legal now ig?

— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) January 18, 2025

Moonshot, which recently surged to become the top finance app on the US Apple App Store thanks to the TRUMP token, said they had onboarded over 400,000 users.Venture capitalist Chris Burniske said he was not comfortable with the token allocation, but saw its huge potential to inspire future innovation in the space, similar to how “The DAO movement of 2016” influenced the ICO boom.Commenting on this matter, Ryan Selkis, Messari founder, believes the current token distribution is a major vulnerability that could lead to problems down the line. He suggested the team burn 75% of the token supply.

“You created $5bn in value overnight. Adjust distribution from 80-20 to 50-50 and make this an equal partnership, and that will fly higher. Keep it 80-20 and it will backfire and be a millstone on the admin,” Selkis wrote on X.

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