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Chinese KOLs make millions off US president’s memecoin.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s memecoin launch has boosted Chinese-language trading accounts by millions of dollars.
Trump launched the token just days ahead of his presidential inauguration on January 20. Memcoin’s market capitalization quickly soared, briefly placing it in the top 15 cryptocurrencies before the debut of a companion token named after first lady Melania Trump.
Blockbeats, a Chinese-language blockchain media outlet, analyzed transaction data and reported that the price surge of the TRUMP token coincides with Asian trading hours.
Chain Insight, a Chinese Key Opinion Leader (KOL) wallet tracker, identified 12 Solana addresses of prominent Mandarin-speaking traders as top beneficiaries of the surge in TRUMP tokens. According to the ranking, 12 accounts each made more than $1 million in profits, with a single trader known as 0xSun amassing $27 million. As of Chain Insight’s January 22 update, the wallet has earned a total of $121 million.
A detailed P&L analysis showed that 28 addresses exceeded $10 million in total net profit. This is a benchmark met by five of the Chinese traders included in the Chain Insight rankings.
The token’s explosive debut was not without controversy. Critics in the cryptocurrency world and politics condemned this.
Representative Maxine Waters criticized the tokens as a tool to circumvent national security and anti-corruption laws.
“Buyers could include large corporations, allies who must show ‘respect’ for the president, and adversaries who have much to gain from influencing President Trump, such as Russia and China,” she said in a statement.
“Anyone in the world, including individuals sanctioned by the United States or banned from the capital markets, can now trade and earn $TRUMP through a variety of unregulated platforms.”
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin also believes that “politician coins” are “dangerous to democracy.”
The token was advertised on the president’s official
Brian Armstrong goes SEA shopping.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong appears to be interested in Southeast Asia as the U.S. cryptocurrency giant looks to expand its regional presence.
Armstrong recently met with Philippine Finance Secretary Ralph Recto in Davos, Switzerland, during the 2025 World Economic Forum.
According to the Treasury Department, Coinbase has begun meetings to discuss a possible expansion into the Philippines.
The move raises eyebrows because it contradicts previous indications that the exchange has little interest in expanding in Southeast Asia. But there were some hints.
At the December 2024 Cryptocurrency Conference, Coinbase said its Coinbase Wallet and Base layer-2 network are actively supporting Southeast Asian developers building apps related to future stablecoins linked to Thai and Philippine currencies.
Additionally, a Coinbase-commissioned report for the fourth quarter analyzed citizens’ perceptions of the financial system and the role cryptocurrencies can play in improving them. The Philippines was one of the four countries studied, along with Argentina, Kenya and Switzerland.
Coinbase has already secured a foothold in Southeast Asia through its Singapore subsidiary. The subsidiary recently obtained a license to operate a digital payment token business without transaction restrictions.
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Line adopts Telegram blueprint as mini DApp portal start
Line Next, the web 3 division of Japanese messaging app Line, is launching a ‘Klaytn’ based on Kaia, a blockchain formed through the merger of Korean messenger Kakao’s Klaytn and Line’s Finchia. A DApp portal featuring ‘mini decentralized applications’ has been released.
The DApp portal allows users to access Web3 services within the Line Messenger app. Mini DApps cover categories such as gaming, social media, and digital content. It also comes with an integrated wallet that allows users to earn rewards and trade cryptocurrency assets.
Line’s move reflects a trend popularized by Telegram, a messaging platform with about 1 billion active users.
Telegram’s integration of mini apps into its ecosystem has already proven to be a huge success among cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Last year, games like Notcoin and Hamster Kombat reportedly raised millions of dollars through airdrop incentives and simple gameplay. These mini-apps are often integrated with The Open Network (TON), the blockchain invented by Telegram, contributing to the proliferation of TON blockchain accounts.
At the beginning of 2024, TON had fewer than 4.5 million accounts, and this figure has since soared to over 137.8 million as of January 23.
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Indian business school launches its own blockchain currency
Birla Institute of Management Technology (Bimtech), an Indian business school, has unveiled its own blockchain-based digital currency ‘Bimcoin’.
Bimtech now stands with IIT Madras as a pioneer in blockchain adoption in Indian educational institutions. Last year, IIT Madras deployed blockchain technology for student elections, leveraging in-house software to enable transparent and remote voting.
The business school’s calls focus on campus transactions between students, vendors, and administrators. Permissioned blockchain architecture is inspired by the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) model rather than a cryptocurrency based on a public blockchain network like Bitcoin.
This is consistent with India’s broader regulatory stance. India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, has long maintained a negative view of cryptocurrencies, having attempted to ban them in the past. Recently, Indian regulators reportedly consulted with experts who advocate banning cryptocurrencies to pave the way for the country’s CBDC, which is in pilot phase from 2022.
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Yoon Yohan
Yohan Yoon is a multimedia journalist covering blockchain since 2017. He contributed as an editor to Forkast, a cryptocurrency media outlet, and covered Asian technology stories as an assistant reporter for Bloomberg BNA and Forbes. He spends his free time cooking and experimenting with new recipes.