Meme coins are having a moment
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Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
One of the biggest stories in crypto this year has been a surge in the market for meme coins — tokens designed around nothing but an image, phrase or idea, mostly designed to make money by catching traders' attention.
Why it matters: Meme coins have become a way for celebrities like Iggy Azalea to cash in fame. Also joining the fray is convicted felon Martin Shkreli, who claims he teamed up with Donald Trump's son, Barron, to create a "TrumpCoin" token, DJT.
What happened: Meme coins became spicy in 2024 because a website called Pump.fun made it super easy to create them — like, faster than you can face-tune a selfie.
Between the lines: When users create a meme coin on Pump.fun, they have to buy it like everyone else. The advantage they have is that they know they are about to do it. So they can get in when the prices are very low.
- After that, Pump raises the price steadily with each token sold, until enough tokens have been sold that Pump can move the coin off its platform and onto the open market, where the price fluctuates according to supply and demand.
By the numbers: Pump has some simple fees built-in, which has earned the project $43 million so far, according to DeFiLlama.
- The TrumpCoin has a $135 million market cap, with almost $200 million in trading over a 24-hour period last week.
- It's far from the only Trump-flavored meme coin. MAGA (TRUMP) has a market cap of over $300 million, while "Doland Tremp" (TREMP), which was also created with Pump, is up to $54 million.
The bottom line: There's still no official Trump meme coin, and there's no indication that the Trump campaign is even considering such a thing.
