TRUMP meme coin exposes cracks in crypto’s equal access narrative

A TRUMP whale just made a killing, walking away with $11.87 million in profit after cashing out 637,000 tokens eight hours ago, according to on-chain data from Arkham Intelligence.

The buyer had spent 3,000 SOL ($720K) to buy 637,000 TRUMP tokens just 28 minutes after the memecoin launched when it was only worth $1.14. Today, he flipped them for 55,000 SOL ($12.59M) at an average selling price of $19.76.

His profit was 16.4 times what he initially invested. But here’s what stings, if he had sold at the peak price, he could have made $46.51 million. The $33.91 million difference is thanks to a market correction that has cut deep into the community’s trust.

But he still made some pretty crazy profits, and while his timing (plus alleged insider knowledge) made him a fortune, the same can’t be said for late buyers, and there are hundreds of thousands of them.

Trump’s announcement sent traders into a frenzy

At night on January 17, then-President-elect Donald Trump dropped the news on TruthSocial to his 8 million followers that he was launching his very own meme coin. It came with an image of him, fist raised, taken after that failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania last year.

His caption was short and direct: “It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” the self-proclaimed ‘crypto president’ said.

Within minutes, chaos hit the crypto markets. Traders rushed to a platform called Meteora to get their hands on TRUMP. The token’s price surged past $70 that very same day, and its circulating market value climbed to nearly $15 billion.

But before small-time investors could fully join the action, whales had already locked in large chunks of the supply. In the first hour, 21 whales (wallets holding at least 500,000 of the tokens) gobbled up a massive portion of the token supply.

Bloomberg’s analysis of millions of on-chain transactions reports that these whales made $214.3 million in profits within the token’s first 48 hours. One particular cluster of related wallets, known as Cluster A, took home $170 million of those profits.

Cluster A’s strategy was aggressive and well-coordinated, according to the report. Wallet A, the group’s starting point, received $1.1 million in USDC stablecoins two hours before Trump’s announcement. Within 90 seconds of Trump’s post, Wallet A bought 6 million TRUMP tokens at 18 cents each. That single move gave it control of 6% of the token’s 100 million supply.

On January 19, when TRUMP hit its all-time high of $78, Cluster A dumped 1.7 million tokens over a three-hour period, and Wallet B sold 650,000 tokens in just three minutes, according to on-chain data.

For most investors who joined after the token surged above $20, it was a gamble. One buyer lost $5 million, while another made $85 million. The difference came down to timing and frequency of trades. Wallets that made thousands of transactions in a short window either saw massive profits or heavy losses. There was no in-between.

Affiliated companies control most of the supply

Meanwhile, two Trump-linked companies (CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC) control 80% of TRUMP’s entire supply locked for three years, but if they start selling when the lock-up ends, it will definitely cause a major price crash, bringing TRUMP down to probably as low as $1.

These companies are already making money. As of press time, they have reportedly generated $11.5 million in trading fees alone, according to data from risk modeling firm Gauntlet. CIC Digital has previously made millions licensing Trump’s image for digital collectibles.

As of press time, TRUMP is down 66% from its all-time high. But though the initial hype may be fading, TRUMP isn’t disappearing anytime soon. Nearly 700,000 wallets still hold the token, and it’s ranked among the top 40 cryptos by market value, beating out more established tokens.