Donald Trump’s election has ushered in a golden age for cryptocurrency scams. In recent months, so-called “memecoins” have passed from being internet jokes to ponzi schemes led by world leaders.
Trump kicked things off three days before his inauguration with the $TRUMP coin. In the first 24 hours, $1.2 billion of the “coins” were traded.
The team behind the launch sold 200 million of the tokens in the first 24hr. The personal earnings to Trump are unknown.
“It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump community,” the president tweeted on the day of the launch.
Each online token, created from nothing, was sold for $8.50. Their value peaked at $74 each the following day. The coins currently sit at around $17 each and the total market cap is $3.37 billion.
The day after the $TRUMP peak, Melania Trump launched $MELANIA. In the first 24hr, over $400m of the coins were traded. Starting at $8, $MELANIA coins are now worth $1.20.
This week saw Argentina’s president get in on the swindle. The president tweeted encouraging followers to buy $LIBRA to “fund the development of Argentina”, before later deleting the tweet.
The coin saw trading of $1.2 billion in its first 24hr. Again, it’s unclear how much Milei himself earned in the heist. Bribes were reportedly paid to Milei’s sister, according to El País newspaper.
Javier Milei, who once described himself as an “anarcho-capitalist”, was the first foreign leader to visit Donald Trump after his election win in November. He visited Trump’s Florida estate in the lead-up to a “Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Investor Summit.”
Milei also attended the America First Policy Institute and praised Elon Musk, saying that X was helping to “save humanity.” Crypto is largely dependent on the X platform, where coins are promoted to users daily.
Memecoins should be distinguished from the more genuine cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, for instance, has a built-in ever-diminishing supply of new currency. Litecoin is essentially Bitcoin but with faster transaction times. Ethereum can be used to write self-executing contracts, paying out automatically when contract conditions are met.
Memecoins, on the other hand, are nothing more than tokens with no use case. Their value is entirely perceived, mostly dependent on the degree of awareness of their existence.
Digitalisation makes more and more of the economy an attention economy. Unscrupulous leaders have found the most direct way to monetise that attention, even if it means ripping off their closest fans and followers in the process.
While arguably just an amusing side-story to the main events, what all this suggests about leaders’ views on even their own followers and supporters could be a portent of darker times further down the road.
All monetary amounts in this article are given in US dollars.
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