Bitcoin (BTC) nursed losses during Monday’s morning Asia trading hours amid frenzied trading in memecoins TRUMP and MELANIA.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value briefly dipped below $100,000, representing a 4.5% drop on a 24-hour basis. ETH, XRP, SOL and BNB posted bigger losses, with ADA and DOGE losing over 10%, according to data sources CoinDesk and Coingecko.
TRUMP, the memecoin linked to President-elect Donald Trump, which debuted Saturday, tanked 30% to $49, as Trump’s wife, Melania launched her own memecoin, MELANIA.
“The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $MELANIA now,” Melania Trump posted on the social platform X on Sunday. The meme coin’s website describes the token as a fungible cryptocurrency created and tracked on the Solana blockchain.
The MELANIA token rallied a staggering 24,000% to a record price of $13, supposedly sucking out liquidity from the TRUMP coin, which was the most-traded digital asset on Binance over the weekend.
Per some observers, the frenzied trading in 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’s CIO Jeff Dorman believe the debut of TRUMP is a green light to all possibilities.
“To start, the pushback for 3+ years from both potential token issuers and potential investors in the U.S. has been “regulatory concerns”. This is now completely eradicated when the President himself is both and issuer and an investor,” Dorman said on X.
“TRUMP token just signaled to every company, municipality, university & individual brand that crypto can now be used as a capital formation and customer bootstrapping mechanism.,” Dorman continued.
On the eve of the inauguration, expectations are rife that Trump will sign an executive order on the first day, announcing the creation of a strategic bitcoin reserve.