On the eve of his inauguration, President Trump wasn’t wasting time with somber reflection or measuring the new drapes. He was, naturally, launching a meme coin called $TRUMP. Within moments of its launch on Friday, its market cap spiked to $14 billion—settling down today at $7.7 billion.
The $TRUMP launch was shortly followed by the First Lady’s own coin, $MELANIA: current market cap around $700 million.
The first couple has seen their net worth increase by billions because of this. . . at least on paper.
We had questions. A lot of them.
Starting with: How is this legal? What is a meme coin? Are people going to lose millions? Is this the digital equivalent of a commemorative inauguration coin or something else?
The Free Press, as it turns out, is not just politically diverse—we are coin-curious, too. Some people around the office seem to think it’s a Ponzi scheme. Others insist it’s twenty-first-century gold.
