Trump Memecoin Brung Exchanges $172M
Exchanges made a pretty penny out of the scandalous TRUMP memecoin, raking in at least $172 million in fees from trading it since its launch half a year ago, a Reuters report released on Monday claimed. Despite worries that its extremely skewed supply concentration—80% in the hands of the Trumps and their collaborators—is dangerously high, behemoth exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, OKX, and Bybit hastened to list it.
Listings of TRUMP Only Took 4 Days
Overall, the mean of these 10 centralized exchanges had the TRUMP memecoin listed in only four days. To put that into perspective, it took the same exchanges 129 days to list other top three memecoins Pepe (PEPE), Bonk (BONK), and dogwifhat (WIF).
Coinbase has been accused of approving the listing in a day, citing demand and public revelations. “We strongly felt users could engage with the token safely and positively,” stated Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase.
User Losses Overshadow Big Gains
While 45 wallets had approximately $1.2 billion, the bigger group of more than 700,000 holders lost over $4.3 billion collectively. The high contrast has prompted questioning about the token’s volatility and concentration.
Regulatory Red Flags Ignored
Coinbase subsequently locked down access to TRUMP for New York customers after a warning notice by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), which had designated memecoins as “sentiment-based virtual currencies” vulnerable to market manipulation, pump-and-dump schemes, and user loss.
Despite all these warning signs, exchanges like MEXC and Bitget recognized placing demand over caution. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen conceded that the 80% insider distribution was risky but pointed out that trading demand overshadowed such reservations.
Creator and Exchange Profits Continue
Beyond exchange profits, TRUMP creators generated at least $314 million in sales and $36 million in Solana fees through the token’s first three months.
While TRUMP has fallen 78% from its January high, the cash bonanza for both insiders and exchanges has solidified it as one of the most significant memecoins of the year—if also perhaps the most contentious.
