Trump and Melania Crypto Coins: What Happened After the Election, Tariffs?

A new wave of tariffs introduced by President Donald Trump has sent shock waves through global markets, with the S&P 500 plunging nearly 4 percent in early trading Monday before partially recovering. The benchmark index, closely tied to millions of Americans' retirement accounts, is now down approximately 20 percent from its recent high—flirting with bear market investors often look to digital assets during market turmoil, Trump and first lady Melania Trump entered the cryptocurrency space well before stocks began to $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens, launched with fanfare, quickly lost most of their value—offering an early glimpse at how political branding plays out in high-risk Has Trump's Crypto Coin Value Changed Since His Inauguration?Just two weeks after Trump's January 20 presidential inauguration, the value of his branded cryptocurrency $TRUMP plummeted by over 75 just days before his swearing-in, the coin peaked at $75.35 on January 19, boasting a market cap of $14.5 billion. By early February, it had fallen to $16.63, with a significantly diminished cap of $3.3 billion, according to Fast $TRUMP coin was marketed as a collectible symbol rather than an investment vehicle. Trump promoted the launch with a social media post urging followers to "Join my very special Trump Community" and to "Have Fun!"The coin can also be used to buy Trump-branded merchandise like sneakers and of $TRUMP Falls Further in Wake of TariffsTrump's coin has continued to fall after his recent global tariffs announcement. In the week beginning April 1, the token has fallen more than 20 percent in fall mirrors the chaotic market drops seen in recent days, with the Dow futures and S&P 500 futures indexes both seeing significant within the crypto community argued that Trump's move undermined serious efforts at cryptocurrency reform. Fast Company reported that Trump "was making a mockery of the crypto world by tying himself to the memecoin world, which could damage efforts to make crypto reforms."How Has Melania Trump's Crypto Coin Value Changed Since the Inauguration?Melania Trump launched her meme coin, $MELANIA, just days after her husband's token debuted. Distributed via the Solana blockchain, $MELANIA initially soared to $13.73 per token and a market cap of $2.1 billion. Within weeks, the coin dropped nearly 90 percent to $1.50."The performance of TRUMP and MELANIA reflects this fleetingness," FRNT Financial Inc. CEO Stephane Ouellette told BNN Bloomberg. "These assets have unclear purposes beyond their momentary novelty, and this gives speculators little incentive to hold beyond time horizons measured in mere days."Despite the volatility, $MELANIA quickly earned a spot among the top 100 crypto tokens by market value. The cryptocurrency even briefly outperformed Sam Altman's Worldcoin.Melania's company, MKT World LLC, handled the launch. It's the same entity she used for her NFT and portrait Crypto Coins Reflect Stock Market WoesThe extreme volatility in the $TRUMP and $MELANIA coins reflects a broader pattern of market instability triggered by the administration's economic collapse of the crypto coins also foreshadowed the instability now facing equities. U.S. Bank reported that investor sentiment reversed sharply after a 2.5 percent rally the day after Trump's November 2024 election of March 31, 2025, the S&P 500 had declined 2.96 percent since Election Day and dropped 4.59 percent in the first quarter of 2025. From its February 19 high, the index fell more than 8 percent S&P 500's 20 percent decline adds to a broader climate of financial instability surrounding Trump's economic and digital ventures. Earlier in the year, both $TRUMP and $MELANIA coins had already lost more than 75 percent of their value, highlighting the speculative risks tied to politically driven more diversified equity indexes, the Trump-themed tokens are subject to market sentiment and their namesake's unpredictable political coins have shown even sharper price swings than equities, falling within days to a fraction of their peak value. Yet both sectors have felt the sting of the trade war, with Trump's recent actions helping to drive the worst performance for U.S. stocks since the early COVID-19 's Other Ventures Into CryptocurrencyTrump's re-engagement with crypto during the 2024 election marked a sharp departure from his earlier position when he called digital currencies a "scam."That changed on the campaign trail, where he accepted crypto donations and promised pro-crypto regulatory reforms. He also appointed David Sacks as a dedicated AI and crypto tsar and spoke about building a "strategic Bitcoin stockpile," according to the BBC.A core part of Trump's ongoing crypto initiative is World Liberty Financial Inc. (WLFI), which is planning to launch a new stablecoin called USD1. The coin will be fully redeemable 1:1 for U.S. dollars and backed by short-term government treasuries, dollar deposits, and cash a recent press release, WLFI described USD1 as an "institutional-ready" digital dollar, initially minted on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain and planned to expand. BitGo, a regulated and insured digital asset custodian, will custody the reserves with third-party audits for transparency."USD1 provides what algorithmic and anonymous crypto projects cannot—access to the power of DeFi underpinned by the credibility and safeguards of the most respected names in traditional finance," WLFI co-founder Zach Witkoff said in a , ethical concerns about Trump Coin in a post on X, formerly Twitter, Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump White House communications director, wrote: "Now anyone in world can essentially deposit money into bank account of President of USA with a couple clicks."Despite disclaimers on its website that the coins are "not intended to investment opportunity," analysis shows that most wallets holding $TRUMP tokens earned less than $13, illustrating the coin's short-lived profitability and extreme volatility, The New York Times tokens illustrate how speculative assets tied to political figures can generate short-term buzz but carry significant downside for everyday buyers. Their often rapid collapse not only tracked with—but in some ways anticipated—the broader sense of financial instability that would soon grip the stock market.