PolitiFi Memecoins Soar After TRUMP Presidential Dinner News

PolitiFi tokens jumped across the board on Wednesday, April 23, after President Donald Trump announced plans to host a private dinner for the top 220 holders of his token. The announcement came a week after another 20% of the Official Trump memecoin (TRUMP) supply was unlocked, increasing available supply.

While the TRUMP token jumped nearly 60% on the news, many other politically-themed memecoins, known as PolitiFi tokens, showed a similar spike Wednesday afternoon after news of the invitation broke. At press time, multiple PolitiFi assets are still up double digits over the past 24 hours, with even more up over 20% on the week, per CoinGecko data.

TRUMP’s market cap jumped from $1.9 billion to $2.9 billion, before falling back to a still substantial increase of $2.7 billion, according to CoinGecko. The price of TRUMP is currently up over 9% on the day and a notable 76% on the week.

the-defiant — TRUMP 7-day price chart. Source: CoinGecko

The obvious candidate for a piggyback ride on TRUMP was MELANIA, the First Lady’s official memecoin, which spiked 25% on Wednesday’s news of the dinner and has since climbed higher. MELANIA’s market cap is now near $205 million, up from $165 million before the dinner announcement, according to CoinGecko. The memecoin’s price is up over 12% today and nearly 30% over the past week.

Other memecoins follow Trump family tokens

The third-largest PolitiFi token by market cap is ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE), which was created as an attempt to raise funds to buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution. That failed and donors’ funds were returned, but the token remained.

PEOPLE saw a much smaller and briefer market cap increase of about 8.3% on the dinner news, which it gave back almost immediately, according to CoinGecko data. Its more serious roots make it different than most of the political memecoins in PolitiFi. Still, though the token is flat on the day, it’s up over 32% on the week.

The fourth largest political memecoin, Kekius Maximus (KEKIUS) jumped from a $26 million market cap to $31.8 million, before falling back to near $30 million by press time. The next largest PolitiFi token, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — which shares its exchange symbol with the original memecoin, Dogecoin — saw its market cap of $12.6 million jump to $16.1 million, before retreating to $14 million.

Some still lively

Generally speaking, PolitiFi tokens tend to spring up in the wake of political events, especially related to the U.S. The failed assassination attempt of Donald Trump saw a surfeit of memecoins pop up and then die. But some strike a chord and stick around.

Many reference political candidates a bit less literally, such as Doland Tremp (TREMP), the 10th largest PolitiFi token by market cap, with $3.5 million, according to CoinGecko. Another example is Jeo Boden (BODEN), the No. 12 PolitiFi token with a market cap of $1.45 million, right below Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR).

While small, the top dozen are still far from dead. MAGA Hat (MAGA), the 8th largest by market cap, saw $4.27 million in trade volume over the past 24 hours. PEOPLE, launched in 2021, saw 24-hour trade volume of almost $65 million. The leading and newest of the top PolitiFi assets, TRUMP, saw a 24-hour trade volume substantially ahead of the pack at $2.3 billion.

Trump reimagines PolitiFi

What Donald Trump’s memecoin has done is redefine PolitiFi, turning the basically silly memecoin sector into a serious one by actually funding a candidate and then an elected official’s political goals — and enriching him in the process, as memecoin profits don’t have to be reported like political donations.

That has made it extremely controversial, with Democrats raging that the coin allows just about anyone to legally bribe Trump. Dems even put forward a bill to ban elected officials from launching memecoins, an attempt that died along party lines.

Trump has embraced crypto wholeheartedly, calling himself “the Crypto President” in speeches, as well as in the public invitation announcing the dinner event that sent the token sector soaring. The dinner, which is scheduled for next month, takes full advantage of his PolitiFi memecoin by giving it actual utility — and jacking up its price in the process.

“Trump has ushered in a new era of political memecoins,” BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes told The Defiant in February.

“I argue that political memecoins will do the following: Offer a true real-time global opinion poll on politicians, allow political campaigns to increase engagement and reach at almost no cost, and onboard billions of people into Web3.”

Arthur Hayes

Price support

The price of TRUMP rose from $9.40 to $14.37 before falling back to about $12. It launched the weekend before Trump’s inauguration at almost $29 and skyrocketed to over $44 before quickly retracing after Trump entered the Oval Office.

“The Trump dinner event on May 22nd is likely an effort to support price appreciation and maximize the value of any future sales,” Dylan Bane, a Messari enterprise research analyst, told The Defiant via email. Bane added:

“Given the token’s significant drop since launch, the team likely want to avoid setting a precedent of aggressive sell-offs, especially with the majority (80%) of tokens gradually unlocking over the next 3 years.”

Dylan Bane

The same day that the presidential dinner was announced, the Official Trump token team also revealed that it was keeping initial cliff tokens, as well those that are supposed to be unlocked daily over the next three months, locked for another 90 days.