US President Donald Trump's launch of his own memecoin $TRUMP could cause him enormous political damage in the future, as investments in this cryptocurrency by businessmen and foreign officials will be considered corruption and an attempt to influence the decisions of the American leader, writes the newspaper The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The cryptocurrency market is experiencing a boom amid expectations for Trump's new measures aimed at creating a “strategic reserve“ in the United States. At the same time, “Trump and his family have tried to cash in on this obsession by minting “Trumpcoins“.
The newspaper calls the creation of Trump and his wife's own memecoins “an extremely short-sighted decision that carries political risks and contains a conflict of interest“. Any businessman or foreign official with special interests “could try to intrigue with Trump by announcing plans to buy millions of his tokens to increase their price, or, worse, secretly inform Trump of their purchase“.
If such cases become known, Trump's political opponents will accuse him of self-enrichment, corruption and violation of American law. WSJ calls the Republican the first US president to be a crypto billionaire.
On January 18, Trump announced the launch of his cryptocurrency $TRUMP. During the day, the trading volume of memcoin exceeded 11 billion USD, after which Trump's wife Melania announced the launch of her coin $MELANIA. Bloomberg agency expressed the opinion that the launch of tokens by Trump and his wife damages the reputation of the crypto industry. According to the agency, Trump plans to issue a decree declaring the development of cryptocurrency a national priority of the United States.