The opportunistic nature of the Donald Trump memecoin and the sale of the $TRUMP ($inauguration day edition bible$)
Cash grabs and greed in Trumpworld are familiar to you. Ever since Trump came to office in 2016, he and his sycophantic supporters have embraced a wide variety of schemes. With Trump’s support, many people have made entire careers out of denying things like stolen elections.
Some inaugural tickets were available for as much as $900 and were set up on a specific website. It is unclear who is behind the page, but the site is ranked as the second result on a Google search for “commemorative inauguration tickets.”
The “Inauguration Day Edition Bible” has been on sale on Greenwood’s own website—alongside hot pink and camo versions of the bible—for $70 for the last week, but as Trump took office on Monday, the bible appeared to have already sold out.
As President Donald Trump was sworn into office as the 47th President of the United States on Monday, grifters and opportunists were already seeking to cash in on the new Trump era—including the president himself.
At the time he was sworn in as president on Monday, the $TRUMP memecoin was worth just shy of $50 billion, with Trump retaining 80 percent of the coins. The coin, which is built on the Solana blockchain, allows anyone anywhere in the world to funnel money directly to the US president.
Just days before he took office, Trump launched a memecoin called $TRUMP to celebrate and have fun, but it was not intended to be an investment opportunity. Trump announced the launch on X and Truth Social, with many wondering if the president’s accounts had been hacked.
The Donald Trump Memecoin’s ‘Money-Grab’ Economics: a Game of PvP with Player vs Player
Religion has also been on the table. Lee Greenwood, a country singer, said on Sunday that Trump could use a special edition of the “God Bless The USA” bible for his swearing in—the same bible the singer has been selling with Trump since last March.
Late Friday evening, three days before his return to the Oval Office, Donald Trump performed an act of crypto alchemy. It only took a few strokes of the keyboard. There is a new official Trump meme here. The incoming US president wrote in a Truth Social post. “It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!”
Some crypto boosters have celebrated the Trump family’s foray into memecoins, applauding the new president’s ability to transmute his fame into crypto wealth. The ethical issues at play are related to the fact that someone else must pay if Trump is to enrich himself.
“Memecoins is absolutely a PvP [Player vs Player] game,” said Azeem Khan, cofounder of the Morph blockchain and venture partner at crypto VC firm Foresight Ventures, in an interview with WIRED late last year. Someone has to lose in order to win.
Source: The Trump Memecoin’s ‘Money-Grab’ Economics
Money is in the Pocket: Bendiksen’s Call for a New Look at a Clinton-Romney Scenario
In this case, Trump’s own supporters stand to potentially bear the cost. “It’s blatantly unethical,” alleges Christopher Bendiksen, a researcher at crypto asset management firm CoinShares. “Knowing that a bunch of [supporters] will lose money—and that money ends up in your pocket. Especially when you are holding the presidency of the United States.”