Trump’s Cryptocurrency Surges to Become One of the World’s Most Valuable 

The new business venture by the Trump family has turned into an overnight phenomenon, generating a windfall on paper but also intensifying criticism.The Trump family’s new crypto token surged in just two days to become one of the most valuable forms of digital currency in the world, creating the potential for a multibillion-dollar payout to the family but also generating a storm of questions about the conflicts of interest the new venture creates.President-elect Donald J. Trump announced the launch of the new token, $Trump, on Friday night as hundreds gathered for a crypto-inspired inauguration ball not far from the White House.The venture won praise by some as a sign of how digital currencies are now going mainstream in the United States.But economists and even some longtime crypto investors said the new digital coin, known as a memecoin, might also emerge as a landmark moment in the speculative history of crypto trading and the potential dangers it poses to the financial system. Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency tied to an online joke or a celebrity mascot.“If people want to gamble, I don’t really care,” said Lee Reiners, a former Federal Reserve economist who is now a lecturer for a center studying global economic markets at Duke University. “What I care about is when this crypto bubble bursts — and it will burst — it will end up impacting people across the economy even if they don’t have direct investment in crypto. And this new coin is making it worse.”Eric Trump, one of Mr. Trump’s sons, who helped launch the token, declined to comment on Sunday.At least on paper, the Trump tokens in the market as of Sunday had a total trading value of nearly $13 billion, and a total of $29 billion worth of trades had taken place in just two days. That calculation is based on the nearly $64 value of each of the 200 million tokens issued, according to CoinGecko, an industry data tracker.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.