The planned dinner for TRUMP memecoin holders by the U.S. President has triggered a price increase of 52% — will it last long?
Official Trump (TRUMP) surged by 52% on April 23 after the announcement of an exclusive personal dinner for top token holders with U.S. President Donald Trump. For some cryptocurrency supporters, this marks the end of the bear market, especially after Bitcoin BTC $93,191 bounced back above $93,000, but others express skepticism about how sustainable the TRUMP memecoin rally actually is.
In terms of pure performance, Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin has been disappointing. After soaring above $75 on launch day, its growth quickly faded as investors noticed the high token concentration and short vesting period.
At first glance, it is hard to justify the current market capitalization of TRUMP at $2.6 billion, considering that 80% of the supply was distributed among founders and organizations controlled by Trump.
In comparison, well-established projects like Arbitrum ARB $0.3351, Jupiter (JUP), and Maker MKR $1,489.92 have a market cap below $1.6 billion. These token valuations are derived from buybacks using treasury reserves or direct benefits from staking and DeFi mechanisms. For example, Arbitrum, a leading Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution, has $2.4 billion in total locked value (TVL).
Jupiter, the leading decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana, boasts $2.3 billion in deposits and has accumulated $76.6 million in fees over the past 30 days, according to DefiLlama data. Meanwhile, Sky (formerly Maker), the project behind the extremely successful stablecoin DAI, holds $5.9 billion in TVL and $28.6 million in 30-day fees.
Established projects with a market capitalization of over $6 billion, such as Chainlink LINK $14.75, Litecoin LTC $82.94, and Polkadot DOT $4.03, have lower open interest in futures than TRUMP. However, while demand for futures markets allows large traders to participate in the action, it does not necessarily imply optimism, as long (buyers) and short (sellers) positions always match.
Despite TRUMP currently trading 84% below its all-time high, it remains a top ten token by volume. In fact, with the exception of stablecoins, only 4 cryptocurrencies have surpassed TRUMP's impressive 24-hour turnover of $3.84 billion, according to CoinGecko data.
Despite the enormous trading activity, a single promotional event with U.S. President Trump is unlikely to create sustainable demand for the TRUMP memecoin, which will keep the current price at $13.50 under control. If the project does not alleviate investor concerns about token unlocks, there is little way to justify the 50% premium compared to cryptocurrencies that offer utility and growth prospects.
It is worth noting that Shiba Inu SHIB $0.00001328, another memecoin without real utility, is currently trading with a market capitalization of $8 billion, so it can be easily argued that a token officially backed by the sitting U.S. President is worth much more, paving the way for price targets of $30 or higher for TRUMP.