Benzinga – Former President Donald Trump has recently changed his stance on crypto, from calling it a “disaster waiting to happen” in 2021 to now being a proponent for crypto in 2024. This shift can be attributed to Vivek Ramaswamy’s advice about Trump’s crypto ownership, which has recently ballooned to more than $20 million thanks to an unlikely memecoin.
Don’t Miss:
- 1 in 4 Americans own a share of Bitcoin according to NASDAQ, how many people got started through this free crypto faucet?
- Holding 0.001 Bitcoin could make you a multimillionaire, according to Fidelity director — but for how long?
Trump first began receiving crypto in 2022 following the release of the Trump Digital Trading Cards NFT collection, in which another company used his name to market and sell 45,000 NFTs for $99 each. The same company later released a “Mugshot Edition” of the NFTs, allowing Trump to receive more than 1,900 ETH from the projects. In December 2023, Trump sold 1,075 ETH for proceeds of $2.4 million and currently holds over 800 ETH worth more than $3.1 million.
The two largest holdings, making up more than $17 million of Trump’s $20 million portfolio, are memecoins. The creators of these projects, MAGA Coin (TRUMP) and Trog (TROG) sent Trump the tokens when they launched, and they have performed extremely well since.
TRUMP was the first successful project to send tokens to Trump’s portfolio. In August 2023, the founders sent 580,000 tokens to Trump. The price of the tokens was less than $0.01 at the time, so the entire position was worth just a few thousand dollars. However, the project has well-exceeded expectations, allowing Trump’s position to grow exponentially. MAGA Coin recently hit highs of over $17.50, meaning that Trump’s position was worth over $10 million. The price of TRUMP has since fallen, but the former president still owns nearly $8 million of the token.
Trending: If you invested $1000 in DOGE when Elon Musk first tweeted about it in 2019, here’s how much you’d have today.
Trump’s largest position is in a smaller memecoin called Trog, short for Trump Frog. This project launched On June 1, 2024, and gifted half its supply to Trump. The price of TROG quickly soared and Trump’s 210 billion tokens were worth as much as $13.3 million. Currently, the position is worth nearly $9.5 million.
However, the project is still relatively small, ranking outside the top 2,500 tokens by market cap. This means that the project is still illiquid, and since Trump owns half the supply, it will be nearly impossible for him to sell in the current environment.
Regardless, these two tokens have benefited from sending a portion of the supply to Trump. This is a marketing scheme since many people look at Trump’s portfolio to see movements. When a prominent position is given to Trump, it appears at the top of the portfolio, prompting onlookers to check out the new tokens and potentially purchase them. This tactic has worked exceptionally well in the cases of TRUMP and TROG.
Read Next:
- Bitcoin has jumped another 45% already this year – how much would you need to get started today?
- According to Cathie Wood, holding 6 Ethereum (ETH) could make you a millionaire, here’s why it can be true.
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
