Listen and subscribe to Opening Bid on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or where you find your favorite podcasts.
New coin memes from President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump could leave retail investors in a bad spot.
“It’s a game token. It’s a meme coin,” Anthony Scaramucci told Yahoo Finance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Our society still has gambling. Our society still has smoking and alcohol. But he is the leader of our country, and he does not represent anything to the rest of these countries, at least the institution of the presidency He did it once. So I don’t like it.
The founder of Skybridge Capital said retail investors could be left “holding the bag” on both currencies amid volatile swings in value.
Trump surprised the crypto community this last Friday by announcing the debut of Trump coin. Officially named Trump (TRUMP-OFFICIAL-USD), the slogan for the coin is “Join the Trump Community. This is History in the Making!”
The crypto firm was brought together by CIC Digital, a subsidiary of the Trump Organization. CIC Digital and its affiliates own 80% of the Trump coin supply. The new tokens will be released gradually over the next three years. Affiliates will be paid trading revenue as tokens are sold.
On the eve of Trump’s inauguration, Melania’s coin (MELANIA-USD) debuted.
In other words, the Trump family will benefit from the presidency.
The Trump coin quickly reached a market capitalization of $73 billion in about 48 hours, surpassing DOGE as the largest meme coin. The market capitalization of the crypto has fallen to $7.3 billion since its launch, according to it CoinMarketCap. Melania coin is trading at a market capitalization of $732 million.
“In our view, the launch of a meme currency by the biggest political figure in the world is a massive paradigm shift in the way the United States and the rest of the world will approach crypto. It means a new regulatory era, where governments see crypto as a technology to reach the masses directly,” wrote Bernstein digital assets analyst Gautam Chhugani.
“We have seen this in the United States, Argentina and even in Canada, where the political part of the right has tilted in favor of Bitcoin/crypto.”
Scaramucci had a brief stint as White House communications director during Trump’s first term. But the hedge fund founder settled back into Skybridge and became a fierce critic of Trump and his inner circle.
It also positioned Skybridge to cash in on the growing popularity of crypto.
