Suspicious trading activity has emerged as the market cap of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s Solana-based official TRUMP memecoin soars to $42 billion, sparking a frenzy among retail investors.
On January 18, on-chain analytics firm Bubblemaps investigated a cryptocurrency wallet that received $1 million in funding four hours before the launch of the TRUMP token.
On-chain data shows that the wallet purchased $5.9 million worth of TRUMP tokens in its first moments of launch and later sold $20 million while holding $96 million worth of tokens. TRUMP tokens were then routed through the wallet and distributed to 10 other wallets, and are currently actively being sold on the Solana decentralized exchange (DEX).
This trading pattern has raised concerns about potential market manipulation as TRUMP memecoin continues to dominate the headlines.
Preetam Rao, CEO of Web3 security company QuillAudits, expressed concerns about the allocation structure and purpose of TRUMP tokens.
“80% of the supply is locked up for CIC Digital, a company owned by the Donald Trump Revocable Trust. This is the same company that launched the Trump NFT trading cards three years ago. The website says, ‘It’s not an investment, it’s a show of support,’” Rao said.
Rao pointed out that the top 10 holders own 89.06% of the supply and the status of the liquidity pool burn is not clear. “Interestingly, the token was launched during the Asian morning hours. “I feel like this is just a way for Trump to make money,” he said.
He told Cointelegraph:
“We see some insider traders participating, but it appears the U.S. government is supporting a project that sets a roadmap for national innovation. Maybe it’s a carpet, but it lays the foundation for innovation.”
relevant: How did Donald Trump handle cryptocurrencies during his first term?
TRUMP memecoin goes mainstream.
The token’s popularity soared when major cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance announced the listing of TRUMP.
According to CoinGecko, Bitget led with $864.9 million in TRUMP transactions over the past 24 hours, followed by MEXC with $842.7 million and KuCoin with $445.2 million. As of this writing, TRUMP is trading at $54.62, up 194% in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, activity in the Solana ecosystem has increased tremendously. Solana’s largest DEX, Raydium, recorded $25.07 million in fees and $2.85 million in revenue, the highest ever for the platform, according to DefiLlama.
MEME trading tool GMGN processed $153 million in Solana transactions and earned $1.52 million in fees. Moonshot cryptocurrency trading platform recorded $1.597 million in fees.
Moonshot processed nearly $400 million in trading volume in the last 12 hours, breaking fiat onramp usage records and bringing more than 200,000 new users onchain.
source: moonshot
Amid the hype, some at X have speculated about a potential “USA Coin” as their next project. Eric Trump dismissed these rumors and made it clear that no such project is being developed.
relevant: After Trump’s team confirmed the launch of the Solana memecoin, traders raised millions of dollars.
Bitcoiners criticize Trump’s memecoin launch
The Bitcoin community reacted strongly, criticizing Trump’s Solana-based memecoin as opportunistic and fundamentally against Bitcoin principles.
Brandon Quittem, Vice President of Revenue at Swan Bitcoin, posted on X: “Trump Coin is an extreme example of a shitcoin, so it will ultimately help differentiate Bitcoin further. “Trumpcoin is a get-rich-quick scheme and is nothing like Bitcoin.”
Pierre Rochard, Vice President of Research at Riot Platforms, emphasized that Bitcoin’s design is fundamentally different.
source: Pierre Rochard
Will Cole, a Bitcoin advocate and product lead at Zaprite, called memecoins “pump and dump as a service.” Wealth transfer from Generation Z and Millennials to Boomers. Powered by Ethereum and Solana.”
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