1. TRUMP and MELANIA Timeline
The TRUMP narrative began even before its contract was deployed to Solana, when Trump tweeted to confirm his association with the meme coin.
If we were to list a timeline of major events for TRUMP and MELANIA, it might look something like this:
December 21, 2024: The domain gettrumpmemes.com was purchased.
January 17, 2025: First minting.
January 18, 2025: Around 2 AM UTC, the DEX trading pair was created.
Forty-five minutes later, Donald Trump posted an official tweet.
On the same day, the domain melanianmeme.com was purchased.
January 19, 2025: At 11:30 AM UTC, TRUMP reached an all-time high of $76.
Ten hours later, the MELANIA DEX trading pair was launched, triggering a significant sell-off among TRUMP holders.
Forty minutes later, Melania Trump released her proof of meme coin ownership.
January 20, 2025: MELANIA reached an all-time high of $13.6.
There are some interesting patterns worth noting in this field:
The launch of TRUMP was well planned.
While the launch of MELANIA was spontaneous, its domain was purchased after TRUMP's successful launch.
The proof of meme coin ownership for both was not released immediately after the trading pair was created.
I don't want to delve too deeply into insider trading. They're just meme coins, reflecting various aspects of this industry.
Theoretically, the launch of TRUMP may be cultural, while MELANIA seems primarily a money-making machine.
2. Expected and unexpected negative impacts
Bitcoin has drawn liquidity away from the broader crypto market, reaching all-time highs, reinforcing the notion that "Ethereum is used for storing funds, and Solana is for trading," along with regulatory easing—these topics were thoroughly explored in many insightful articles during the early stages of the Trump meme coin frenzy. I intend to avoid repeating what others have already discussed.
I want to highlight some less obvious potential negative impacts of the Trump meme coin here, most of which have no solutions.
Legitimacy of meme coins
If the President of the United States can officially release a meme coin that drops 45% on a 15-minute candlestick chart, then anyone can do it.
Before TRUMP was launched, several celebrity meme coins had already been released, most of which slowly dropped to zero. Many believe that one day the Wild West of DEXScreener will end, as the SEC will eventually focus on the unregulated meme coin market, which is filled with scams and insider trading, where the only guaranteed winners are the developers.
Trump set a legal precedent: anyone can secretly launch a meme coin and then announce their meme coin 40 minutes later, enjoying the process.
This historic initiative may have several huge negative impacts:
(1) A new wave of meme coins will emerge, with celebrities, politicians, and even companies joining this trend. What is the only rule? Disclaimer: "The X token aims to express support and participation in the ideals and beliefs embodied by Y." Thus, the rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer—this is the universal law of meme coin trading.
(2) The issuance of meme coins will increase exponentially. Many of my friends in the Web2 space are asking me if we should all issue a meme coin together. For me, the answer is always "no"—I am not willing to gamble my reputation for money.
(3) The first step to attracting new users will be meme coins with Wild West rules; with no previous experiences to draw from, their chances of sticking around are slim. In their view, all cryptocurrencies will be meme coins, and in 90% of cases, the experience will be negative.
(4) After years of lenient policies in the cryptocurrency industry, there will be over-regulation to minimize fraud and "protect American citizens from the harm of crypto wolves."
(5) The typical Web3 narratives—such as infrastructure, DeFi, and DePIN—will receive less and less attention. In recent years, the lack of hype around altcoins, along with the trend of "low circulation and high FDV" issuance, has created extremely challenging conditions for attracting capital and users. This problem is expected to worsen over time. Teams will need to prioritize typical product revenue models that do not require tokens to sustain.
Is this the global cryptocurrency adoption path we've been eagerly anticipating?
This is a big problem.
But adoption is certain.
