The $TRUMP cryptocurrency, launched by US President Donald Trump, has taken a nosedive – leading to billions in losses.
Trump launched cryptocurrency on January 17, mere days before his swearing-in ceremony as the next US president. By the time he took the Oval Office, the coin had already crossed the market capitalization of $15 billion. This happened despite $TRUMP essentially being a meme coin. While regular cryptocurrencies are used for specific transactions (like Ethereum being used to facilitate blockchain transactions on the Ether platform), a meme coin has no intrinsic value and its value is driven mostly by market perception. As such, most meme coins (like DOGE coin by Elon Musk) inevitably crash.
The $TRUMP coin was no different. This week, the coin crashed until reaching a market capitalization of merely $2.48 billion. Investors lost more than $12 billion in the process. Experts say that this crash happened due to Trump’s inaction on making any pro-crypto policy since his presidency – despite the earlier promise to do so, which skyrocketed the crypto prices in the first place. The crash was not just limited to $TRUMP coin; Bitcoin has dropped by 20 percent while Ethereum fell to its 16-month low.
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Amidst all this is the curious anecdote of $TRUMP being labelled an ‘artwork’. While NFT artworks are a thing, touting a cryptocurrency as art has an entirely different purpose: to escape accountability. When a cryptocurrency is used like a regular currency (as Bitcoin is used), it becomes a security and becomes subject to strict regulatory laws. However, $TRUMP is defined as an ‘artwork’ to be used merely for collection purposes and not investment, thus providing legal cover to Donald Trump.
