What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, as the saying goes. And apparently in the case of the Trumps, they’re laying seeming golden eggs in the form of crypto meme coins before the couple officially return to the White House on Monday. On Sunday, Melania Trump announced that “The Official Melania Meme is live!” via her official X account. “You can buy $MELANIA now.” It follows her husband and president-elect’s multi-billion-dollar-fetching $TRUMP token.
Melania’s X post includes a black-and-white photo of the returning First Lady and a link to the website where one can purchase the Melania Memes, which are described as “fungible crypto assets created and tracked on the Solana blockchain.” Web records show the Melania Meme website was registered on Saturday, just one day before it launched.
It’s unclear how $MELANIA and $TRUMP tokens work within current federal agencies’ rules and regulations governing cryptocurrency — which Trump has promised to revamp — but the Melania Meme website makes the following disclosures and disclaimers: “Melania memes are digital collectibles intended to function as an expression of support for and engagement with the values embodied by the symbol MELANIA. and the associated artwork, and are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type. memes.melaniatrump.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign or any political office or governmental agency.”
The token is available for purchase via debit card or cryptocurrency. As of Sunday evening, the price fluctuated at around $250-270 U.S. dollars equaling 1 Solana (SOL), the blockchain platform. The news of the Melania digital collectibles venture comes on the heels of Trump becoming a crypto multi-billionaire overnight with his “Trump Meme” coin. According to Axios, Trump’s crypto holdings, dubbed $TRUMP, are worth as much as $58 billion on paper. The president-elect has been courting crypto firms and has pledged to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world.”
Speaking about the first Trump Meme coin, Brendan Fischer, the deputy executive director at Documented, tells Rolling Stone, “The timing of this launch cannot be a coincidence. It comes just after Trump’s campaign ended, and just before he formally takes office and is fully subject to federal ethics rules.” He adds, “Trump cannot capitalize on his campaign for personal benefit, nor can he profit off of public office.”