The announcement came via the US president-elect’s preferred social media platforms: Donald Trump was launching another crypto-related project.
Dubbed “the only official Trump meme” on its Web site, the token features an illustration of the incoming US president with his first in the air — an image associated with his response immediately after an assassination attempt during the campaign.
While the small print on the Web site disclaimed that the tokens, available via the Solana blockchain network, are not intended to be an “investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type,” crypto-minded Trump fans immediately started buying.
Photo: Reuters
Within 24 hours of launch on Friday night, the token had rallied more than 400 percent from mere cents on the dollar to a high of US$32.61, according to crypto data aggregators CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap.
The Trump token has attracted billions of dollars in trading volume in the hours since launch, despite initial speculation that the social media announcements were a hack.
Social media accounts associated with Trump had previously been hacked and used by unauthorized actors to promote a fraudulent token — a common occurrence in crypto, and one that has even affected the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Trump’s previous forays into crypto include profitable collections of nonfungible tokens, digital collectibles that show him in a variety of poses and costumes, including as a superhero. Along with his sons, he has also endorsed World Liberty Financial, a project that has been much-hyped, but for which details remain scarce.
Trump has made explicit overtures to the crypto industry in the months before and after his election. He is considering an executive order designating the asset class a “national priority,” Bloomberg News previously reported.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS