This week's meme coin mania sparked a wave of unauthorized tokens looking to cash in on the frenzy
Mario Tama/Getty Images; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI
- Trump's meme coin went viral this week — and it sparked a wave of imitators trying to cash in on the frenzy.
- Unofficial cryptos named after Ivanka Trump, Barron Trump, and others soared this week.
- Crypto has rallied since Trump won the election, with altcoins and meme tokens seeing big boosts.
Trump's meme coin was the talk of the crypto market this week, and its success sparked a wave of unofficial tokens looking to woo investors with the promise of swift gains.
The frenzy began shortly after Donald and Melania Trump launched their own meme tokens, $Trump and $Melania, the weekend before the inauguration.
Those coins attracted a rush of retail money — much of it from first-time crypto buyers — as well as some big money "whales."
As their prices went parabolic, it didn't take long for imitators to crop up, with issuers minting new tokens bearing the names of high-profile figures.
A meme coin named after Ivanka Trump quickly climbed 275%, according to CoinMarketCap data, with the coin spiking the morning of the presidential inauguration. However, unlike the official Trump and Melania tokens, $Ivanka is not affiliated with anyone in the Trump family.
Ivanka Trump took to social media on Thursday to warn her followers about the crypto coin, adding that her legal team would be pursuing measures to "stop the continued misuse" of her name.
"It has come to my attention that a fake crypto coin called 'Ivanka Trump' or '$IVANKA' is being promoted without my consent or approval," the first daughter wrote on X. "To be clear: I have no involvement with this coin. This fake coin risks deceiving consumers and defrauding them of their hard-earned money." The coin has plummeted 45% in the last 24 hours.
Then there was a coin that invoked the name of Barron Trump, the president's youngest son. The price of $Barron coin soared rapidly amid a cocktail of social media hype and misinformation, garnering a market value of more than $450 million. However, when it became clear that the token had no official connection to anyone in the Trump camp, the price plunged as much as 95%.
CNBC anchor and DealBook editor Andrew Ross Sorkin was another target of meme coin madness. "Sorkincoin" hit the market shortly after the journalist's talk with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, during which they joked that someone should create a coin inspired by Sorkin.
Sure enough, a token bearing his name was minted soon after. Sorkincoin topped $170 million in trading volume in 24 hours, CoinMarketCap data shows, and Sorkin only found out about the crypto when a friend texted him about it, he told "Squawk Box" on Friday.
"I was going to say, strangely flattering, but completely unauthorized. We don't know who created it. It's just a very strange thing to watch this thing go," he added.
The week's meme coin mania caps off a heady few months for the crypto space since President Trump won the election last November.
Trump, who was branded the "crypto president" while on the campaign trail, unleashed a burst of optimism for cryptocurrencies in hopes that the new administration would loosen regulation of the space and even get the government involved in bitcoin by establishing a national reserve.
A long-awaited executive order on Thursday was light on specifics, however. Notably, while it addressed the potential creation of a national crypto stockpile, it didn't indicate that the government would necessarily be buying digital assets.
Instead, it said a group would examine the potential for a reserve "derived from cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the Federal Government through its law enforcement efforts." Elsewhere, the order was mainly related to the promotion of technology and clear regulations meant to support the space.
Some on Wall Street have voiced skepticism over the exuberance that has gripped crypto recently. David Einhorn, the founder of hedge fund Greenlight Capital, noted that the market has entered the "fartcoin" stage of the cycle, wherein meme coins proliferate.
"Nothing stops the launch of many more tradable coins," Einhorn wrote in his quarterly letter to investors. "It's anyone's guess as to what will happen next, but it feels like it's going to be wild."