TRUMP turns PEPE, SHIB into second largest meme coin, market cap exceeds $13B

Key Takeaways

TRUMP token has surpassed Pepe and Shiba Inu to become the second biggest meme coin.
The token has been criticized for its distribution, with 80% by companies linked to the Trump Organization.

TRUMP, a newly launched meme coin created by President-elect Donald Trump, has turned Pepe (PEPE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) into the second largest meme tokens in terms of market cap, CoinGecko. data presentations. The milestone was reached just over a day after its launch.

With a current market cap of around $13.5 billion, TRUMP is trailing only Dogecoin (DOGE), the popular meme coin and favorite of Elon Musk, co-director of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump administration who coming in. Dogecoin's market value is around $54 billion as of the latest data.

Trump's official meme base was introduced on Truth Social and X on Friday night, two days before his inauguration. He described the token launch as a celebration of his ideas and a symbol of “WINNING.”

Valuation of the token increased to about $8 billion in less than three hours of launch. In the following hours, its prices blew past $30 on a wave of listings on popular crypto exchanges such as Upbit, HTX, Kraken, Gate.io, OKX, and Binance.

On Saturday night, Coinbase announced that it will add TRUMP to its listing roadmap, a move that suggests the major exchange is considering listing the token in the future.

Support from major trade platforms has fueled the TRUMP movement. The token has doubled in value following Coinbase's announcement. At the time of writing, one TRUMP is worth around $69, representing a 230% increase over 24 hours.

In the same period, DOGE and SHIB were down about 7% each, while PEPE lost 11% of its value. The broad meme coin market was in sharp decline with most tokens posting double-digit losses, erasing their recent gains.

Unlike other major meme coins, Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) continues to grow and maintain its gains at press time.

An ongoing dispute

There's a lot of excitement — and skepticism — surrounding Trump's unexpected token launch. A whopping 80% are held by companies affiliated with the Trump Organization creating a highly centralized environment. It raises serious concerns about the use of the market, the ability to pull rugs, and the long-term viability of the project.

Stephen Findeisen, widely known as Coffeezilla, a YouTuber and investigative journalist known for his work in exposing scams and fraudulent schemes, called the release of TRUMP an “evil job” .

Many of Trump's supporters, especially those who do not know crypto, could face financial losses, according to Findeisen.

> Dropping TRUMP memecoin 2 days before you become president is a bad job
> new SEC/DOJ promises no prosecution
> 80% of marks come to insiders during the leadership
> most ppl lose money as MAGA who are not crypto native
> *should* be a crime but a legal crime is now ig?

— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT) January 18, 2025

Moonshot, which recently became the number one financial app on the US Apple App Store thanks to the TRUMP token, said they had on board over 400,000 users.

Venture capitalist Chris Burniske said he wasn't comfortable with the token allocation, but he saw its great potential to spur innovation in the space in the future, similar to how the “DAO Movement of 2016” influenced the rise of ICOs.

Speaking on this issue, Ryan Selkis, the founder of Messari, believes that the current distribution of signals is a big risk that could cause problems. He suggested that the team burn 75% of the token supply.

“You created $5bn in value overnight. Change distribution from 80-20 to 50-50 and make this an equal partnership, and that will fly higher. Keep it 80-20 and he'll come back and be a cornerstone of the controller,” Selkis write on X.