President-elect Trump launched his own cryptocurrency overnight and swiftly appeared to make more than $25 billion on paper for himself and his companies.
Why it matters: The stunning launch of $TRUMP caught the entire industry off-guard, and speaks to both his personal influence and the ascendancy of cryptocurrency in his administration.
- It also speaks to the nature of the crypto industry that someone could have $25 billion worth of something that literally did not exist 24 hours previously.
Crypto market cap does not equate the equivalent in dollars. When you create a new cryptocoin you can freely adjust the coin’s parameters such as the amount of available coins. So let’s say you “print” 1000 coins and sell one at $50. You now have a market cap of $50000.
It’s like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, with the notable distinction that the rabbit isn’t real. What makes it real is if enough suckers actually buy the coins with real dollars.
I wish more people understood this. Especially in the press, since its their job to educate everyone else.
Trading volume is what matters, not trading price. It’s only worth $25 billion if you can turn $25 billion of it into cash.
Unfortunately since banks still haven’t take wised up to this, and the wildcat crypto banks really haven’t, its likely still possible to pump a meme coin and then take out loans against the purported asset value. The bank is then left trying to repossess a pile of worthless memecoin when you fail to repay the loan.
I’d like to add that trade volume is only a slightly better indicator, because wash trading is very easy in crypto. Wash trading happens when the coin’s owner and/or an accomplice buy and sell coins back and forth among themselves. It’s easy to do if you have control over a huge amount of coins, because you printed them yourself at the low low price of $0. This has two effects: the trade volume grows, which makes it look like there is public interest in the coin, and you can pump up the price at the same time.
Thats not a problem with cryptocurrency in general. Its only an issue with the subset of coins that premine, which is a scam.