Author: Zhu Likun, Qiu Hao, Guan Yiwen; Source: LatePost
Two days before taking office as the US President, the Trump team seized the last window to bring goods and released the Meme coin $TRUMP. This cryptocurrency has no function, but only reflects the most fundamental logic of the trading market - if there are more people who want to buy than those who want to sell, it will rise; vice versa.
This is the culmination of Trump's series of goods. During the election, he sold a bottle of "Fight Fight Fight" perfume for $199, "Never Surrender" sneakers for $399, and Trump watches up to $100,000, so that ordinary people and rich fans can buy them.
"Fight Fight Fight" is the slogan launched by Trump after the assassination, and this time it also appears on the official logo of $TRUMP.
The bubble was created in an instant and quickly dissipated. One and a half days after the issuance of $TRUMP, the price rose from less than $1 to a maximum of more than $75. Based on the total issuance of 1 billion, its fully diluted valuation (FDV) reached $75 billion, which once exceeded the Dogecoin promoted by Musk. It took only one and a half days for $TRUMP to plummet from its peak price to less than half.
A few people who participated early made a lot of money, and more people who followed the trend lost money, and their life trajectories diverged. Of course, the most direct beneficiary is the Trump team that issued the currency. Coinbase executive Conor Grogan said that even without selling any tokens, the Trump team earned about $58 million in transaction fees in one day.
This confirms a simple fact: in a purely speculative market, the only thing that can guarantee making money is "opening a casino". This article attempts to record the experiences of the participants in this absurd transaction 48 hours after the Trump coin was issued.
Before Trump tweeted, bet $600,000
"Moonshot! Moonshot!" At 9 p.m. on January 17, Eastern Time (hereinafter referred to as Eastern Time), a burst of shouting suddenly broke out in 0xSun's headphones, and several cryptocurrency players shouted excitedly in the group. Moonshot is a platform where meme coins can be traded using legal currency.
0xSun and these people are in a small group. They are used to chatting with each other for six or seven hours every day. They buy and sell coins in front of the computer and share their operation ideas. It looks like a few friends playing games together. The game is thrilling. They may make millions of dollars in a few hours, or everything will go to zero.
The person who shouted "Moonshot" also forwarded a link to the group. It was Trump's announcement of the launch of $TRUMP on his own media platform Truth. At this time, he was only two days away from officially taking office as the President of the United States.
"This may be the biggest opportunity since I joined the cryptocurrency circle." 0xSun thought so. But this unexpected thing seemed a bit absurd. How could a president release a worthless token? It seemed more like a hacker's account hacking - which is also very common in the cryptocurrency circle.
"Celebrate our victory and have fun!" $TRUMP's official website wrote. The website repeatedly emphasized that this coin does not represent any investment opportunity and has nothing to do with politics.
This is the appearance of a classic meme coin. At the beginning, it had no real value and no so-called fundamentals. It was often jokingly called "air coin". A popular online joke or an emoticon package can become a meme coin. Its value depends only on how many people are willing to believe that it has value and are willing to spend money to buy it, and therefore it has become the tool of choice for various scams.
Unsure whether to buy it, 3 minutes after $TRUMP was released, 0xSun's monitoring system on the blockchain sounded an alarm, and a new message reminded him that the racing game calculated in seconds had begun - a blockchain address he had been monitoring for a long time had started buying.
The address consisting of a long string of characters is called "smart money" in the crypto circle, referring to accounts with good past trading returns. 0xSun remembers that this trader is less than 20 years old, has made a lot of money, does not pursue winning rate, but only pursues buying in new projects early to gain low-cost advantages.
After another 10 minutes, the various cryptocurrency communities where 0xSun is located began to discuss $TRUMP, and most people were questioning how ridiculous this coin is.
At this time, 0xSun has begun to buy $20,000 worth of $TRUMP every minute, earlier than most people, and at a very low cost. Because he found on his monitoring system that the Moonshot platform officially listed $TRUMP in just a few minutes, and the platform had not yet issued an announcement. Moonshot is relatively compliant, which makes him more convinced that the official has already negotiated cooperation, rather than hacking. Many traders use this point to quickly judge the purchase.
0xSun stared at the three computer screens in front of him. He opened two trading pages and repeatedly clicked refresh. The trading platform began to freeze and crash. Not every transaction was successful. He was a little nervous. He bought $600,000 in about half an hour, with an average cost of $0.6. It was the extremely low cost that made him make a fortune a few hours later. 0xSun also became the first person in the currency circle to make a lot of money in $TRUMP.
"A good trader has his own intelligence system." A trader codenamed doso.eth said, "If this system is done well enough, it's like opening the eyes of heaven."
0xSun is an on-chain player, and individuals trade directly on the blockchain. Compared with operating on exchanges such as Binance, this method "has unlimited freedom and unlimited risks." Therefore, players on the chain should make good use of data analysis tools, collect intelligence, and keep track of important dynamics related to transactions at all times - it is a mental and physical job.
Celebrities, dog heads, sad frogs, all make no difference to the first buyers
"We have encountered too many projects suspected of being hacked, and analyzing data and collecting intelligence are our muscle memory." Another player on the chain, Moon, said. She currently has a profit of more than $1 million on $TRUMP.
Of the thousands of newly released meme coins every day, 99% of their value will return to zero. Some meme coins are scams from the beginning, and the project owners suddenly run away after attracting huge amounts of funds. The crypto circle calls this scam a "rug pull", which literally means "pulling the carpet", which vividly describes how unexpected this scam is.
Moon has only been in the industry for two and a half years, and has already adapted to this ever-changing market. She usually studies projects and makes decisions quickly within five or six minutes. If she makes a mistake in judgment, she just reflects on the problem and does not waste time on emotions. "While you are struggling and giving yourself a psychological massage, you may have missed the next opportunity." She said in a flat tone.
Bond, who has been in the industry for 7 years, is not afraid of scams. Like 0xSun, he chose to "go all out" when most people were skeptical about $TRUMP. Also because he bought early, he earned a 20-fold return with a cost of $1 million.
Bond experienced a scam. The scammer first filled the fund pool with $100 million to hype it up. The market value soared within three days of the coin issuance. When all participants were jubilant, the pool was suddenly withdrawn.
"If you run fast, you can make money." Bond thought, even if $TRUMP is such a big scam, he believes that he can get out earlier than others based on his experience and run before the scammers.
At 21:44, Trump's Twitter account sent out the news of $TRUMP. At this time, 0xSun had already completed the purchase operation and held one thousandth of the total amount of $TRUMP.
The transaction data on the chain is open and transparent. Moon checked the profitability of the on-chain wallets. "More than 400 addresses have made profits of more than 1 million US dollars, and I know more than 100 of them." She believes that most of these people are "ordinary people" who have no so-called connections and insider information, and rely purely on technical analysis to obtain information.
In the hour when 0xSun's value skyrocketed, celebrities in the cryptocurrency circle were wearing black suits and bow ties and holding a ball in an auditorium a few blocks away from the White House. The $2,500 tickets were quickly sold out, and some people spent $100,000 to buy VIP seats to meet the incoming White House artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency chief.
"The reign of terror against cryptocurrency is over." The incoming chief explicitly opposed the Biden administration's strong regulation. "Innovation in American cryptocurrency has just begun."
The ball was held to celebrate Trump's upcoming inauguration, and the participants expected the most cryptocurrency-friendly US president to introduce policies that benefit the industry, but Trump did not appear at the ball.
Halfway through the ball, news of the sale of $TRUMP came, and many people present had just learned about it. When the rapper at the party sang "Don't Stop Believin'", more and more people around the world began to believe that $TRUMP was real, and a large amount of funds poured in, rapidly pushing up the market value of this meme coin and the value of 0xSun.
In the eyes of 0xSun, this person's name is just an influential symbol, a hot topic, and no different from the emoticons representing other meme coins (such as dog heads and sad frogs).
From the pursuit of usefulness to complete speculation, "I can't make this money even if I give it a hundred chances"
At 21:30, Christine stared at 0xSun's on-chain wallet and saw that he was buying every minute, a total of $600,000. Christine only invested $10,000 or $20,000 to test the waters. She felt that "there is no time and cost advantage anymore."
Half an hour later, 0xSun was already enjoying the huge returns from his large investment. He kept refreshing the tool page for calculating returns. At the fastest time, his asset figures increased by $1 million every few minutes.
"The profit figures on the books are already too big." 0xSun said that when the price rose to $4, he sold one first to ensure that he could get back his principal. People who make the most money on $TRUMP usually have similar portraits: staring at the monitoring system and reading information all day, and living the screen as a part of the body; dare to gamble, but have clear trading discipline.
Christine is not one of them. She also works hard. She puts the computer next to her pillow every day, and the first thing she does when she wakes up is to turn on the screen in bed to check the market. On the day $TRUMP was issued, she had to accept a fact: after sleeping for only half an hour longer, the cost of buying $TRUMP was 6 times higher than 0xSun.
Five or six hours after the sale, the price of $TRUMP rose all the way to $14 and temporarily stabilized. "For an air coin with nothing, I feel that it (the price) can't go up." Christine said. In the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in West Kowloon, Hong Kong, she took out her computer in between her work and operated the sale.
Three hours later, she was surprised to see that the price line rose sharply at a 90-degree angle. The price did not fall and continued to soar to $23. A large amount of funds poured in quickly, and the "whales" entered the market. Christine bought again, and when it rose to $25, she hurriedly sold it.
Not only Christine did this, many people in the crypto circle did the same, waiting and watching, and making tentative purchases.
Some of them are engaged in NFT, turning artworks into virtual collectibles that can be bought and sold; some are engaged in decentralized finance (DeFi), lending on the chain to earn interest; some are engaged in trading contracts, relying on predicting the price trend of a certain currency and leveraging to gain high returns.
"We are all engaged in speculative trading, there is no high or low, but meme coins are speculation among speculations." A trader said self-deprecatingly. Due to the characteristics of extreme volatility, hype out of thin air, and frequent scams, meme coins used to have a relatively marginal position in the currency circle.
In the past two years, meme coins have gradually entered the mainstream of the currency circle. According to statistics from CoinGecko, a cryptocurrency data statistics platform, meme coins attracted the attention of 31% of currency circle investors last year. One in three people is more interested in "air coins" with cats, dogs, frogs and monkeys, rather than value coins with technological innovations.
On the third day after $TRUMP was issued and the day after his inauguration, the 47th President of the United States was clueless when facing reporters' questions: "I launched it, it was successful, and I don't know much about it."
His vague attitude has caused dissatisfaction among many industry insiders. Danny Scott, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange CoinCorner, said that Trump is mocking the entire industry with a hype.
Last year, at the Bitcoin 2024 conference hosted by Bitcoin Magazine, a veteran media in the cryptocurrency industry, Trump took the stage to deliver a speech and announced a series of crypto-friendly policy plans, including the strategic reserve of Bitcoin, making the United States the world's crypto center and a Bitcoin superpower.
Before any promises are fulfilled, the interests have been exchanged. The founder of a blockchain information platform finds it hard to understand that members of Congress have to declare and be ridiculed by people all over the world when they buy and sell stocks worth tens of thousands of dollars, but the incoming president has no supervision at all in cryptocurrency and directly uses the cryptocurrency circle as an ATM.
A considerable proportion of early cryptocurrency participants were geeks who believed in decentralization. Later, as Bitcoin generated huge value, financial investment or speculation became the mainstream. In recent years, with the supervision of governments, large financial institutions and more participation of the public, compliance has gradually become the mainstream narrative.
The founder of the aforementioned information platform feels that the issuance of coins by the Trump team is a collapse of compliance in the traditional sense. Even the president issued worthless meme coins without restraint two days before taking office, which means that anyone can.
"The industry is ushering in a super cycle of meme coins." said a trader codenamed doso.eth. The wealth-creating effect of meme coins is getting stronger and stronger. For example, in March 2024, a KOL who specializes in drawing sad frog memes issued a coin, which reached a market value of more than one billion US dollars in two or three days, and many early participants received a hundredfold return.
The currency circle is changing the way of playing. Many veterans did not follow the meme coin craze because they disdain, do not understand or do not believe it.
Trader Daftpunk did not make a profit on $TRUMP because his main position was not placed on the Solana chain that hosted $TRUMP. It is much slower to transfer assets from other places than players on the Solana chain. Daftpunk entered the industry at the peak of the Bitcoin craze in 2017. He believed that he had a decentralized ideal, but he did not agree with or like the more centralized development and governance of blockchain platforms such as Solana, but in the end he followed the trend and bought it.
A trader called "Queen" in the currency circle, when $TRUMP rose to $8.5, she still bought $6 million in high-priced stocks. Two days later, she added a line to her social media profile: "Turned $6m to $32m in 2 days. RETIRED :)"
An old player who bought at $1.4 has his own way of making money. Memecoin has no fundamentals, and the core abilities are two points: enter enough core circles and master the most first-hand information; prepare funds, keep an eye on the market at all times, and find out a set of trading principles of your own.
Christine said: "Give me a hundred chances, and I can't make this money." Her investment style is stable, and she is unwilling to "beat the dog" (speculate on memecoin) full-time. She thinks this money is only suitable for people in their 20s. She is in her 30s and can no longer bear watching the market day and night. "Old people are prone to sudden death."
At 5 a.m. on the 18th, 0xSun sold for the last time, and the $600,000 principal turned into more than $20 million in profits.
He felt it was unreal. In the three years since he entered the industry, he woke up every day after sleeping for one or two hours. He opened his eyes and checked the market and news first, for fear of missing any opportunity. When traveling, he also had to put a 27-inch monitor in his suitcase. Now, he plans to take a break.
Starting from the 18th, well-known exchanges such as Binance have successively launched $TRUMP, and a large number of retail investors who will not trade directly on the chain have rushed to buy it, driving the price from $40 to $70.
At that time, Christine had just finished a few hours of flight. She turned on her phone, and a series of new messages seemed to squeeze out of the screen. Many retail investors outside the circle who had never dealt with her before - car sellers, house sellers, insurance sellers, beauty salons, KTV reservations, all came to ask her: Can you help me buy $TRUMP?
At the same time, she turned on the blockchain monitoring system, and the "smart money" in the circle were selling, "This time it really reached the top."
An investor observed that a big change in 2024 is that the entire currency circle no longer talks about ideals, and everyone has entered a state of "web3 nihilism", and it has become a clear card - Bitcoin is becoming more and more a mainstream asset, and most other things have been proven to be bubbles and air.
"Everyone is here to gamble," said the above investor. "Gambling must be about the hottest, the biggest odds, and the most exciting. The explosion of $TRUMP came into being."
In a zero-sum game, the money earned by 60 winners is lost by ordinary investors
Sean bought heavily three times at high prices, and then he quickly regretted it, sold at a loss, and soon regretted it again.
At first, the price he saw was only $0.6, which soon rose to $17, and he tried a few hundred dollars. When he checked again the next day, the price of the coin had exceeded $30. "It doesn't matter, just consider it a missed opportunity." Sean comforted himself. But soon he couldn't help it. Ten minutes later, the price of the coin rose to more than $40. Sean was instantly overwhelmed and used almost all the funds on his chain to buy at a price of $46.
Sean regretted the purchase immediately. He had to attend an event and give a speech that day, but at this time his mind was completely held hostage by price fluctuations. So he sold all at $45 and decided to focus on the next event.
When he opened his phone again after the event, $TRUMP had risen to $70. The annoyance swallowed up his rationality - 70 all in, sold all when it fell to 55, rushed in again when it rose to 65, and then sold all at 60.
Sean lost a total of more than 10,000 US dollars that day, which was not a lot of loss. Most of his assets were not on the chain. Previously, he mainly got "airdrops" (free tokens) by completing simple tasks provided by the project party, and on-chain transactions were outside his comfort zone.
What made him more uncomfortable than losing money was that someone made tens of millions of dollars, but he didn't. Before entering the cryptocurrency world, he was a professional athlete who loved to compete and enjoyed winning.
On the night when he lost money in the $TRUMP trade, Sean, who was emotionally broken, reviewed his operations to ChatGPT and asked himself how to adjust his mindset and what books he should read?
ChatGPT suggested that he "accept the loss" and "try to relax his obsession with 'making money immediately'", and gave him a list of books, the first of which was "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Toru Kiyosaki. "It is suitable for those who want to fundamentally change their perception of money." ChatGPT recommended.
Sean's perception of money has long been changed by this book. In the spring of 2016, Sean, who was still an athlete, was training in the mountains. He had no mobile phone or computer. He read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" in his spare time. For the first time, he knew that "money can make money" and "rich people make money in this way."
In September 2022, Sean retired from his athletic career and began to focus on Web3. He and several friends set up a studio, focusing on discovering early cryptocurrency projects and earning "airdrops" from them. After the failure of this transaction $TRUMP, Sean decided to shift more of his energy to the chain.
Sean hesitated whether to share the story of losing money, because he also runs a community and needs to create a money-making persona, but later he felt that facing the problem was more important than face.
After learning about the experiences of more people, he found that there might not be so many people who made money. Except for a few "whales", few friends around him were showing off their earnings. And not showing off the money you make is not the style of this circle.
The data confirmed his guess. According to blockchain analysis agency Chainalysis, as of January 21, Eastern Time, among those who held $TRUMP, less than 23% of them earned more than $100, and the money lost mainly went to 60 people who earned tens of millions of dollars.
"This is a zero-sum game. The money the winner gets is the money lost by people with worse skills." Jack, who currently works at a leading cryptocurrency exchange, said. In a mature securities market, large companies continue to absorb more funds as their performance grows, but meme coins are just a symbol, mainly for short-term arbitrage, and those who come first only sell to those who come later.
After $TRUMP went online, the meme coin trading platform Moonshot, which cooperated with it, once rushed to the fourth place in the North American App Store download list. Moonshot previously had only a few thousand daily active users, and the transaction fees and number of users on the day $TRUMP went online were dozens of times higher than usual.
For meme coins like $TRUMP, the project initiator team initially created a liquidity pool on the public chain, and investors traded directly with the project party. After a period of issuance and a certain amount of attention and trading volume, it was possible to officially land on mainstream exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, and OKX.
Investors who discovered opportunities earlier and traded directly on the chain have the opportunity to win high odds at extremely low prices. But at the same time, because of direct transactions with the project party, the risk of withdrawal of the capital pool and market crash is also extremely high. Blind betting will lose nine out of ten bets.
Most investors can neither monitor information in the first time nor have the ability to accurately judge risks. They are just attracted by the word Trump.
An investor who has been in the circle for only two months shared on a social platform that he made more than $10,000 by buying $TRUMP on Binance the day before, and then went to the chain to buy $MELANIA the next day, and finally lost more than $50,000.
Many people who have never done on-chain transactions rushed to open accounts. Chainalysis data shows that about half of the holders of $TRUMP and $MELANIA (a meme coin based on the image of Mrs. Trump) have never purchased cryptocurrencies on the Solana blockchain. They created a crypto wallet on the day they bought the tokens; more than 80% of the holders have a total asset of no more than $1,000 on Solana, which means that most people are not players who deeply participate in on-chain transactions.
Compared with complex on-chain transactions, Binance and OKX are the platforms that most people will use. They have the same friendly user interface as mainstream stock trading software and are easier to operate.
But for speculative products such as meme coins, many respondents saw Binance listing spot as an opportunity to sell. They saw the sentiment of chasing the rise break out, and even relatives and friends outside the circle began to ask how to buy coins, so they decided to leave with profits.
Before $TRUMP was listed on mainstream exchanges, at least more than 100,000 investors had bought it through the public chain. After Binance listed spot, the price of $TRUMP rose from more than 40 US dollars to nearly double, but soon fell below 40, and as of press time, it was less than 27 US dollars.
A large number of new players are eager to enter the market, and some people smell business opportunities and make money from "selling water". Searching for keywords in some communities, you can see many posts that provide invitation codes and teach newcomers to download, register and use exchange apps.
Liu Lei, senior partner and director of the digital economy department of Beijing Yingke Law Firm, told us that Trump's attitude has changed the rules of the game, causing Wall Street, regulators and investors to re-evaluate the future of the crypto industry. But it is too early to draw conclusions now.
From a lawyer's perspective, Liu Lei believes that the biggest impact of Trump's team's coin issuance on American society is not mainly reflected in the economic level for the time being, but how it exacerbates the chaos in the political, financial and legal fields. Liu Lei said that Trump's supporters may regard it as a kind of "political belief investment", but if the coin price plummets, ordinary investors will be hurt in the end.
In less than 48 hours, at least billions of dollars of wealth transfer have been completed. Like every speculation, the initiator always makes a profit, the platform earns transaction fees, a very small number of savvy people seize the opportunity, and some old users earn hard work fees and new commissions through "hands-on teaching", while most participants who come with the tide pay for them.