Future first lady Melania Trump has entered the cryptocurrency space, debuting her own “meme coin” over the weekend.
However, mere hours after the launch of this new digital asset on Sunday, her husband’s coin saw a dramatic drop of over 40%, as reported by Forbes—prompting many to tie Melania’s project to the fall of her husband’s.
On X Sunday evening, Melania shared a monochrome image of herself beaming with her hands held together, stating, “The Official Melania Meme is live! You can now purchase $MELANIA.”
In just a few hours, the value of the digital token surged to more than $12, supported by a market capitalization exceeding $12 billion, according to cryptocurrency monitoring platform DEX Screener.
Similar to her husband President-elect Donald Trump’s meme coin, $TRUMP, Melania’s coin is a form of cryptocurrency that gains worth as more individuals invest in it.
Trump announced his new coin on X Friday, encouraging his followers to partake in his “very special Trump Community” and to “celebrate all we represent: WINNING!”
The coin’s official website elaborates that Trump’s meme coins are “designed to serve as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs represented by the symbol ‘$TRUMP’ and its accompanying artwork, and are not meant to be, nor act as, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any kind.”
Over the weekend, Trump’s $TRUMP rapidly rose to become the second-largest meme coin by market capitalization—just behind his close associate Elon Musk’s cherished Dogecoin. Nevertheless, in the initial hours following the launch of Melania’s meme coin, Trump’s market capitalization plummeted by over $7.5 billion, as per Forbes.
Although he previously stated that he was “not a big fan” of cryptocurrency and described its investments as “potentially a disaster waiting to happen” in a 2021 interview on Varney & Co, Trump appears to have altered his stance on crypto four years later.
In addition to launching his own meme coin, the president has appointed David Sacks as his cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence czar, setting the stage for a new era of cryptocurrency in the nation.
“The reign of terror against crypto is over,” says Sacks in a video shared by Eric Trump on X Saturday. “And the dawn of innovation in America for crypto has just started.”
