Donald Trump’s official meme coin, TRUMP, fell sharply late Sunday evening following a post from Melania Trump’s social media accounts promoting what appears to be a crypto tied to her name.
“The Official Melania Meme is live,” a post on Melania Trump’s X account, which Donald Trump has since retweeted, reads. The post was also shared via the incoming First Lady’s Truth Social account.
Dubbed Melania, the Solana-based token has surged more than 12,000% in the last 24 hours to $6.70, DEX Screener data shows. Decrypt has reached out to Trump’s team for additional details.
The Melania Meme token’s distribution model allocates 35% to team vesting with a 13-month release schedule (vesting period), according to the token’s webpage. Notably, the equal 20% distribution to both treasury and community initiatives while maintaining a conservative 10% liquidity pool and 15% public distribution. Such a framework appears to support the token’s primary function as a collectible digital asset rather than a speculative instrument.
The Melania Meme token is “intended for collecting and entertainment purposes only,” the project’s website states in an FAQ section. “They are not financial instruments or investments.”
Interestingly, the vesting schedule’s gradual unlock mechanism starts with a 30-day lock period, followed by measured monthly releases. That differs from Trump’s own token which consists of daily vesting periods.
It comes just days before the President-elect is expected to assume the presidency following his inauguration on January 20. Trump has promised to drive the industry forward by establishing a Bitcoin reserve and fostering a favorable regulatory environment for the asset class this year.
TRUMP is down about 32% over the last six hours to $45, down from a peak of around $77 earlier on Sunday, according to data provided by GeckoTerminal.
“Donald Trump’s memecoin, $TRUMP, crashes … as Melania Trump launches her own memecoin. This is beyond insane,” members of the Kobeissi Letter wrote on X on Sunday.
The trading frenzy also comes amid disruptions to Solana infrastructure, including the Phantom Wallet.
“We’re currently experiencing a massive surge of 8,000,000+ requests per minute. While we work to stabilize our platform, transactions may have trouble going through on the first try,” Phantom wrote to X.
The multi-chain, self-custodial wallet is designed primarily for the Solana network and is often regarded as the “MetaMask of Solana,” with over 15 million monthly active users.
Sunday’s trading activity has also impacted Moonshot, a Solana meme coin launch pad.
“We currently have extremely high traffic, and some swaps may be failing—please retry if you have problems,” it posted to X.
Mert Mumtaz, co-founder and CEO of Helius Labs, a company specializing in developer tools for the Solana blockchain, attempted to assuage those concerns.
“Blocks are being produced, the chain is live,” Mumtaz tweeted. “Some apps aren’t adjusting fees automatically, but the median fee has gone up—some of the app logic I’m seeing is atrocious, requesting over 20x the amount of CUs that are actually being used.”
The broader crypto market has since retreated sharply, with Bitcoin falling back to the $100,000 price tag while seminal meme token Dogecoin (DOGE) is down 11% over the last 24 hours, CoinGecko data shows.