Three days before his inauguration as US president, Donald Trump made an unusual move. He launched $Trump, a so-called meme coin that fans and speculators could buy in the hopes it would gain value. Initially, $Trump soared from a value of $7 to $75 per coin in a day, according to crypto price-tracking website CoinMarketCap. Two days later, it dropped to about $40 – just as incoming first lady Melania Trump launched her own meme coin, $Melania. Even the pastor at Trump’s inauguration ceremony, Lorenzo Sewell, got swept up in the meme coin frenzy, promoting a $Lorenzo version the same afternoon.
So what exactly are meme coins, and why is everyone and their vicar suddenly getting involved?
Meme coins are a type of digital asset based on a meme – usually something that has gone viral online. The best known is Dogecoin, inspired by the popular meme featuring a shiba inu dog that speaks in Comic Sans. But Dogecoin is a bit different from the slew of recent meme coins, says Simon Peters, crypto analyst at trading platform eToro. Launched in 2013, Dogecoin has its own blockchain – the decentralised ledger technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. The majority of other meme coins are “tokens”, meaning they operate on top of an existing blockchain and so require little in the way of technical development.
