Justin Solar, founding father of blockchain platform Tron, poses for {a photograph} in Hong Kong, Could 8, 2020.
Calvin Sit | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
Crypto billionaire Justin Solar is shopping for one other $100 million price of $TRUMP, doubling his whole identified stake of digital cash tied to President Donald Trump.
Solar, who based the TRON blockchain and is working to resolve a civil fraud case with the U.S. Securities and Change Fee, introduced the acquisition of the $TRUMP token in an X put up on Wednesday. Solar stated the Trump-linked digital cash will quickly be tradeable on the TRON community.
“$TRUMP on TRON is the foreign money of #MAGA,” Solar wrote.
It is a splashy endorsement at a second of reckoning for political meme tokens.
The $TRUMP token, 80% of which is managed by the Trump Group and affiliated entities, has grow to be the centerpiece of the household’s increasing crypto empire. The “Finish Crypto Corruption Act,” launched by Senate Democrats earlier this yr, is meant to ban elected officers and senior government department personnel from issuing or endorsing digital property.
The $TRUMP coin has whipsawed since its January launch, peaking at a $15 billion market cap on its first day of buying and selling earlier than sliding sharply to about $2 billion as of July. The complementary $MELANIA token, in the meantime, has plunged greater than 90% from its providing value in January to lower than $141 million.
However that type of value volatility has been good for enterprise.
The $TRUMP token’s code mechanically routes a payment from each transaction to wallets tied to its creators. Between January and April alone, these wallets pulled in additional than $324 million in buying and selling income, in keeping with Chainalysis. The blockchain analytics agency has since ceased monitoring this metric, citing different commitments to shoppers.
Solar has quickly emerged as one of many Trump crypto ecosystem’s greatest whales.
In January, Solar boosted his holdings of World Liberty Monetary’s WLFI token — the place 75% of income move to the Trump household — to $75 million. A court docket submitting in February revealed that Solar and the SEC have been in talks to resolve the company’s civil fraud case in opposition to him.
Solar quickly added the $TRUMP token to his portfolio, successful a contest for prime holders and additional cementing his affect within the MAGA-crypto universe.
Now, Solar is getting into U.S. public markets via a reverse merger with SRM Leisure, a toy provider backed by Trump-linked funding financial institution Dominari Securities.
Dominari is a boutique funding financial institution whose father or mother firm has just lately drawn consideration for its ties to the Trump household. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump joined Dominari Holdings’ advisory board earlier this yr, shortly earlier than the agency’s share value surged.
Solar’s newest guess highlights simply how deeply Trump-aligned tokens have embedded themselves within the speculative heart of the crypto market — and the way aggressively high-profile gamers akin to Solar are capitalizing on the second.
