Bitcoin (BTC) racked up losses during early Asian trading hours on Monday amid frantic trading in the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value briefly fell below $100,000, representing a 4.5% drop in 24 hours. ETH, XRP, SOL and BNB posted larger losses, and ADA and DOGE lost more than 10%, according to data sources CoinDesk and Coingecko.
TRUMP, the memecoin linked to President-elect Donald Trump, which debuted on Saturday, plummeted 30% to $49, as Trump’s wife Melania launched her own memecoin, MELANIA.
“The official Melania meme is now available! You can buy $MELANIA now,” Melania Trump posted on social platform X on Sunday. The meme coin website describes the token as a fungible cryptocurrency created and tracked on the Solana blockchain.
The MELANIA token surged a staggering 24,000% to a record price of $13, reportedly absorbing liquidity from the TRUMP coin, which was the most traded digital asset on Binance over the weekend.
According to some observers, the frenetic trading of the TRUMP and MELANIA coins represents the FOMO phase of the bull market and could lead to a notable BTC price correction.
Meanwhile, others like Arca CIO Jeff Dorman believe TRUMP’s debut is a green light for all possibilities.
“To begin with, the pushback for over 3 years from both potential token issuers and potential investors in the US has been “regulatory concerns.” This is now completely eradicated when the president himself is both issuer and investor,” Dorman said in X.
“The TRUMP token just signaled to all companies, municipalities, universities, and individual brands that cryptocurrencies can now be used as a capital formation and customer startup mechanism,” Dorman continued.
On the eve of the inauguration, expectations are rife that Trump will sign an executive order on day one announcing the creation of a strategic bitcoin reserve.
