It has been brought to light that more than 90% of incoming U.S. president Donald Trump’s wealth is in crypto assets, including the red-hot $TRUMP token . Former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan and general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz weighed in on the potential implications of this development. “First Crypto President” Balaji Srinivasan noted in a Jan. 19 post on X that President-elect Donald Trump is the “first crypto president”. According to Balaji, Trump, like many early holders who witnessed meteoric changes to their personal wealth, went from crypto being just 1% of his wealth to a staggering 90%. “Overnight, the vast majority of the net worth ($59B) of the next President of the United States is now held in cryptocurrency. This will hold true even with a 90% drop,” the former Coinbase CTO opined. While other celebrity meme coins have quickly crashed to zero, Balaji believes this will not be the case with the $TRUMP meme coin due to Trump’s vast online presence, “presidential immunity”, his massive influence over the government, and “daily non-stop coverage.” “Every politician, influencer, and celebrity worldwide is watching mouth agog at the phenomenon. They’ll wait to see how it shakes out politically and financially, and if the memecoin shows staying power — big if! — they may do their own,” he continued. Srinivasan further suggested that any criticism from Washington might prompt Trump to “legalize cryptocurrency in the most aggressive way possible” in a bid to protect his own digital wealth. Although some have accused Trump of greed with the meme coin launch, Balaji suggested that it was no different from how other prominent public figures have profited over time, citing that “Biden took 10% for the big guy, and Pelosi traded her stocks, and Hillary monetized her speeches, and Podesta had his $300B climate slush fund, and Obama got his Netflix deal. All became millionaires via various deniable forms of payola for Democrats.” Trump Family Meme Coin Spree On Jan. 18, 2025, the crypto market experienced a huge event with the debut of the ‘official’ $TRUMP meme coin on the Solana blockchain. Within just hours of its launch, TRUMP’s market cap surged to a staggering $14 billion and cracked into the top 20 cryptocurrencies on CoinGecko. A day after $TRUMP dropped, Trump’s wife Melania launched her self-titled meme coin, $MELANIA. $MELANIA spiked an eye-popping 24,000% to a record peak of $13.05 as Trump’s Solana-based meme coin fell. A website that reveals the tokenomics of the MELANIA token says the meme coin was created to express “support” and “engagement” and is “not intended” to be an “investment opportunity” or “investment contract”. The site asserts that 35% of the $TRUMP tokens have been allocated to the token’s team, with 20% being distributed to both the community and treasury. Moreover, it claims that 10% was set aside for liquidity and 15% was offered to the public. Yet, blockchain sleuth Bubblemaps has uncovered that roughly 90% of the Solana-based token’s supply is held in a single wallet and does not align with the team’s claimed token distribution. According to Coinbase executive Conor Grogan, it’s “ very unlikely” $MELANIA is a rug pull, though it’s possible that it was launched on short notice by a less organized team compared to the one behind the TRUMP meme coin. “My guess is that this token was handled by a different team than TRUMP’s,” Grogan wrote in an X post. “That one looks like professional market makers, this one honestly looks like college kids.” That being said, these back-to-back meme coin drops have boosted the net worths of Trump and the next First Lady, Melania, by billions of dollars.
