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Donald Trump-Themed Meme Coins Breed Crypto Millionaires as MAGA Token Surged

Analysis by Nansen shows that early TRUMP holders made an ROI of over 1,600% from the PoliFi token.

By Shaurya Malwa, Sam Reynolds|Edited by Omkar Godbole

Updated May 22, 2024, 8:05 p.m. Published May 22, 2024, 7:15 a.m.

The surge of the TRUMP token, which is not directly linked to Donald Trump, has created a new class of millionaires in the PoliFi crypto sector.
The Trump campaign announced it would begin to accept crypto donations, including bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), and meme coins dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB).

The young PoliFi crypto sector, a frontier wherepolitics, finance, and cryptocurrency converge, has minted a new class of millionaires as a token themed after Donald Trump surged in the past few weeks, analysis by on-chain data provider Nansen shows.

While the issuance of the TRUMP token has nothing to do with the former U.S. President Donald Trump directly, traders are using the tokens as a speculative bet on his ongoing presidential campaign.

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In the past two weeks, the Trump MAGA (TRUMP) token is up nearly 75%, according to CoinGecko data. It surged 14% on Tuesday as the Trump campaign said it would begin to accept crypto donations, including bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), and meme coins dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB).

From all this, some holders of the MAGA meme coin – the first experiment in a new category of tokens called PoliFi, which has a collective market cap of $749 million – have seen returns of over 1,600%.

One such address is sitting on over $5.5 million worth of the token.

But how do the top 10 onchain TRUMP sellers compare?

Well, if we look at the top address - they are crushing it

They bought TRUMP early and have been raking profits at peaks, with over 1,600% in unrealized gains pic.twitter.com/l18iUe6xh8
— Nansen 🧭 (@nansen_ai) May 21, 2024

Several addresses purchased low six-figures in TRUMP tokens and are now sitting on unrealized gains of over $1 million. They are gradually trimming their holdings but not selling in a manner that could cause a sudden price dump. As such, these sales were made before Tuesday’s campaign donation announcement.

However, recent buyers of the TRUMP token are posting a poor return on investment and have a low overall win rate, the data showed.

Meanwhile, the value of TRUMP holdings sent to a wallet linked to the actual Donald Trump has risen to nearly $5 million.

Holdings in a wallet linked to Donald Trump. (Arkham)

A wallet supposedly linked to Trump received $7,100 of TRUMP from the meme coin’s developers between August and October 2023.

Sending tokens to a wallet linked to popular entities is sometimes used as a marketing strategy by meme coin makers, as they can attract eyeballs – and galvanize investor interest.

Trump Trading Markets

Shaurya Malwa

Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.

Sam Reynolds

Sam Reynolds is a senior reporter based in Asia. Sam was part of the CoinDesk team that won the 2023 Gerald Loeb award in the breaking news category for coverage of FTX's collapse. Prior to CoinDesk, he was a reporter with Blockworks and a semiconductor analyst with IDC.