Trump’s Very Stable Genius Coin

The Intercept Briefing

The Intercept

Politics, Daily News, History, News

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the eve of his second inauguration, Donald Trump did something no U.S. president had ever done: He launched a meme coin. The cryptocurrency — whose value hinges more on hype than utility — surged to an all-time high of $75.35 a token. The next day, First Lady Melania Trump dropped her own meme coin, debuting at about $13 a share.

Both coins have since tumbled, but on Wednesday Trump’s token briefly bumped up again to $15.47 before dipping. The latest surge came after the coin’s official website announced that 220 top meme coin holders will be invited to a gala dinner with the president in May — black tie optional.

These tokens, that are not tied to any real world assets, have proven lucrative for Trump and his family. Last month, the Financial Times estimated Trump made upwards of $350 million from the project. While small traders have lost big, the Trump Organization and its affiliates — controlling 80 percent of the token supply — have made hundreds of millions in just trading fees.

Trump, once a crypto skeptic, is now the industry’s most powerful advocate.

“ He went to a big bitcoin conference in Nashville last July. That's where he declared he would make the U.S. the crypto capital of the planet,” says Intercept reporter Matt Sledge. “And the crypto industry started showering money on him. They saw somebody who would be friendly to their industry.”

This week on The Intercept Briefing, Sledge, who covers crypto’s political reach, discusses how investing in the president has paid off for the industry and for the Trump family.

“So far in Trump's presidency, things have gone great for the crypto industry. Even as the rest of the economy is on pretty perilous footing, a bunch of crypto companies have seen the SEC and other regulatory agencies drop investigations or lawsuits. Trump has created a 'bitcoin reserve,' and in general, regulators and Congress are behaving much more friendly toward the industry.”

For more on how Trump is reshaping the crypto landscape and what it means for the rest of us, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Intercept Briefing. I'm Jessica Washington.
0:07.7	The day before Donald Trump was inaugurated, he dropped his meme coin.
0:11.6	First Lady Melania Trump followed shortly after.
0:14.6	The tokens, whose values are essentially driven by popularity and speculation, have garnered Trump hundreds of millions of dollars
0:22.3	by some estimates. From meme coins and stable coins to a new government-backed Bitcoin Reserve,
0:28.8	Trump, once a crypto-skeptic, is now the industry's biggest cheerleader. The meme coins are just one
0:34.3	aspect of the president and his family's growing interests in risky digital
0:38.9	assets, just as Trump is dismantling oversight of the industry, dropping investigations,
0:44.5	and redirecting law enforcement efforts. Some of Trump and his family's recent crypto ventures
0:49.9	also include Trump's media company partnering with crypto.com, and a newly formed investment firm
0:56.3	to offer financial products, including, you'll never guess, crypto to retail investors.
1:01.8	And Trump's sons, Eric, and Don Jr. have taken a stake in a new Bitcoin mining firm called
1:06.8	American Bitcoin. Is Trump turning the U.S. government into a launchpad for his family's growing crypto empire?
1:13.7	Join me now to break all of this down is my colleague and friend Matt Sledge, a politics reporter here at The Intercept.
1:20.4	Welcome to the show, Matt.
1:21.5	Thanks so much, Jesse. It's great to be on with you.
1:23.9	To start, Trump was once a crypto-sceptic, saying it seems like a scam.
1:28.9	But now he's a self-declared crypto president.
1:31.7	What changed?
1:32.5	I think the short of it is money.
1:34.9	Trump and his sons saw an opportunity to make a bunch of cash in an industry with pretty
1:41.5	low entry barriers since all the products are digital.
	...

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