Official Trump (TRUMP) received a direct endorsement from US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account. After the mention, TRUMP rallied by more than 10%.
US President Donald Trump took a break from pending global issues to support the Official Trump (TRUMP) ticker, sparking a 10% rally after he mentioned it on Truth Social. Trump called his meme token “the greatest of them all”, despite the market price drop since the launch.
Following the statement, TRUMP rallied to $12.25, later sliding to a lower range of $11.92. The 10% pump is small for a meme token or even an altcoin, suggesting Trump’s effect may be diminishing, or even affecting crypto negatively. The direct mention of the ticker was seen as a form of market manipulation. Meme tokens, however, remain entirely unregulated and the social media effect on the price is not illegal.
The TRUMP rally arrived just as other meme tokens were making a recovery. TRUMP remains a less liquid asset, and does not copy the moves of community tokens or older memes like Pepe (PEPE).
Official Trump rally invites fast, risky trades
After the mention of TRUMP, the token’s open interest also rallied, from $223M to $323M within hours. The rapid price movement led to $1.6M in short liquidations in the past 24 hours.
The short-term rally, however, was not enough to erase the slide that started on January 20. TRUMP was also among the reasons for the outflow of demand for memes, as the token showed signs of early sniping and caused deep losses for retail investors. Following the minor TRUMP pump, MELANIA stayed in its usual range at around $0.69.
The endorsement, just like the TRUMP launch, came on a Sunday, a relatively slow period even for crypto assets, as the official markets are closed. One of the top TRUMP whale traders sold into the pump, adding to a realized profit of $31.8M. The whale is one of the most active meme traders, having bought and sold other hot trends in the past, with minimal remaining holdings.
Another whale bought TRUMP for 5M USDC but incurred $207K in losses after abandoning the position within an hour. The same whale previously made $108K from earlier TRUMP trades.
TRUMP is also heading into a period of token unlocks, when the vested team tokens will be released into circulation. The first upcoming unlock is on April 18, with a 10% cliff unlock and daily 0.12% unlocks into 2027. More cliff unlocks are expected in Q2 and Q3, which may test the market price of the token. TRUMP created mass hype for being a meme token, but the token holding structure resembles that of insider projects or VC-backed tokens.
World Liberty Fi returns to buying
The endorsement for the TRUMP meme token arrived just as the World Liberty Financial fund added more tokens to its holdings.
In the past day, World Liberty Fi added more Mantle (MNT) valued at $2.81M. The fund has also added a wider selection of tokens and altcoins, including Movement (MOVE). Some of the newly acquired tokens are held with Gnosis Safe Proxy.
The fund has ended all WLFI presales and now works simply as a holder and trader. The fund carries $82.16M in crypto assets. Over $26M are in the form of ETH or staked ETH, suggesting the Trump family keeps betting on the Ethereum ecosystem.
However, there are concerns some of the tokens may be illiquid, or linked to projects that are not delivering results. MOVE is the token of an app that barely sees any users, and Mantle Network lags behind other L2s with lower activity levels.
WLFI achieved over $550M in sales from outside the USA and from US-based accredited investors. The fund is now preparing for its next stage, where in theory the 85,000 WLFI buyers would have voting rights and launch an Aave vault for passive income.
Cryptopolitan Academy: Tired of market swings? Learn how DeFi can help you build steady passive income. Register Now
