The stock price of Freight Technologies, a little-known firm specializing in supply chain logistics, were down on Monday, three days after the company said that it was raising money from investors to accumulate U.S. President Donald Trump’s meme coin as a strategic treasury asset.
Freight Technologies’ shares were recently changing hands around $1.50, a 30% decrease, according to Yahoo Finance. Shares had soared as high as $3.83 on Friday after the company’s initial announcement.
The announcement has raised concerns anew about whether the president has used his position to advance his business interests, in this instance providing access for companies and individuals who can afford it. Democratic lawmakers and others have raised this issue repeatedly in recent months.
“The Trump administration has set up what is effectively a bribery bucket,” Ryan Grim, a reporter for political blog Drop Site, said in a video posted to TikTok. “Companies that don’t put TRUMP coin into the bribery bucket are going to have less of a chance to influence policy.”
Freight Technologies and a White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Decrypt.
Over the past seven days, TRUMP’s price has fallen 25.5% to below $11, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. When the token debuted in January, it rocketed to an all-time high of $74, before the launch of a coin from first lady Melania Trump dented investor sentiment.
Established in 2015, Freight Technologies said that it had entered into an agreement with an institutional investor, allowing the company to raise up to $20 million by issuing convertible senior notes, according to a press release. The company said it plans to offer $1 million worth of convertible senior notes to investors first.
Although the president’s meme coin will help Freight Technologies diversify its crypto holdings, the company’s CEO, Javier Selgas, signaled that the firm wanted to purchase millions of dollars worth of TRUMP to have the company’s stance on trade with Mexico be heard.
“We believe that the addition of the Official Trump tokens are an excellent way to diversify our crypto treasury, and also an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the U.S.,” he said in a statement.
When Trump debuted his meme coin in January, legal scholars raised ethical concerns with the president’s move, saying it could allow anyone to purchase favor with the government. Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was among lawmakers that immediately called for an investigation into the “specter of uninhibited and untraceable foreign influence.”
Last month, TRUMP’s price popped after the project’s team said that the token’s top 220 registered holders would be able to attend an exclusive dinner at Trump National Club in Washington, D.C. The top 25 registered holders will be allowed to attend a VIP reception with the president himself, prompting “pay to play” concerns from Warren as well.
Freight Technologies has acquired a cryptocurrency before, announcing in April the purchase of $5.2 million worth of Fetch.ai, or FET, tokens. The token powers an artificial intelligence blockchain used for complex machine learning.
Edited by James Rubin