Entities behind President Donald Trump’s crypto coin have accumulated close to US$100 million (HK$780 million) in trading fees in less than two weeks, according to estimates from three blockchain analysis firms, a large windfall from a venture that has seen tens of thousands of small traders lose money.
The meme coin, known as $Trump, was launched by the president on Jan. 17 and quickly surged, reaching a peak of over US$14.5 billion in overall market value by Jan. 19, the day before his inauguration. It has since slumped by two-thirds.
Three crypto data firms, including Merkle Science and Chainalysis, analyzed the blockchain, a publicly available ledger that shows all transactions involving $Trump, for Reuters. They estimated that the $Trump token had generated between US$86 million and US$100 million in trading fees by Jan. 30.
The estimates far exceed what has been previously reported.