Trump issues cryptocurrency, an $80 billion "crypto lecture."

Written by: Zhou Zhou, Foresight News

U.S. President Trump issued the official "Presidential Coin" TRUMP, and within less than two days, its market value exceeded $80 billion.

This event will undoubtedly become an important historical milestone. For both cryptocurrency practitioners and onlookers, this "Trump Coin Incident" will also serve as a good opportunity to iterate and update the understanding of the cryptocurrency industry.

As a participant and observer, I discovered on January 18 at 10:50 AM (when the TRUMP token was valued at about $3 billion) and concluded my phased observations by the evening of January 19 (when the TRUMP token was valued at $80 billion), witnessing the entire explosive process of the "Presidential Coin" and engaging in extensive discussions with other cryptocurrency practitioners. Therefore, I attempt to summarize and record these observations and discussions.

Presidential Crypto Lesson One: Opportunities are on the Chain

If you don't engage with DEX products like Phantom and Jupiter, you will likely miss the opportunity presented by TRUMP. If there isn't enough capital on-chain, you will also likely not achieve sufficiently high returns from this event.

The Trump Coin Incident has become the most identifiable turning point, indicating an irreversible trend: the center of cryptocurrency is accelerating its shift from CEX (Centralized Exchanges) to DEX (Decentralized Exchanges).

In the day and a half following the launch of the TRUMP token, without any major centralized exchanges listing the token, TRUMP's market value reached $50 billion. Data shows that in January 2024, DEX trading volume accounted for only 9.3% of CEX, while in January 2025, this figure rose to 17.6%. These data indicate that DEX is replacing CEX as the most important "gathering place" for cryptocurrency players.

Additionally, the performance of the decentralized contract exchange Hypeliquid has surpassed many centralized exchanges in this instance. Hypeliquid was the first exchange to launch the TRUMP contract, doing so around 1 PM on January 18, taking only three hours to launch the contract, at which point TRUMP's market value was about $10 billion (it reached a maximum market value of $80 billion the next day). The contract for the First Lady Coin MELANIA was launched around 10 AM on January 20, completing the deployment of the hot token contract in less than five hours.

Essential Crypto Products: Phantom, Jupiter, Uniswap

Presidential Crypto Lesson Two: In the World of Martial Arts, Only Speed Prevails

The TRUMP token was launched around 10 AM on January 18, with a launch price of approximately $0.18. By the evening of January 19, TRUMP peaked at $80. During this period, the increase was over 400 times.

During this time, one must discover quickly and make decisions quickly to acquire lower entry points.

The best traders bought TRUMP before 10:30 AM, such as KOLs like 0xSun, Dayu, and Yuyue. They mostly share a common trait: the habit of monitoring smart money on-chain. This habit of monitoring on-chain wallets allows them to discover opportunities the fastest. Real-time attention to on-chain smart money requires tools like GMGN, Debot, and Vector. Technically savvy cryptocurrency practitioners may write their own code to monitor the addresses of smart money on-chain.

Discovering opportunities is just the first step; decision-making is the second step.

In this "Trump Coin Incident," the two platforms that require the most attention are Twitter and Moonshot, which served as important reference platforms for many cryptocurrency practitioners in deciding whether to buy TRUMP. The official Trump Twitter post was made at 10:44 AM, representing the authenticity of the event, while the price of the token listed on Moonshot was $1.21, further validating the authenticity and significance of the event. This was also the time window when most people could seize the opportunity.

Essential Crypto Products: GMGN, Vector, Debot, Twitter, Moonshot.

Presidential Crypto Lesson Three: Cognition Determines Position, Tools Determine Speed

Cognition determines position. Some people buy early but in small amounts and sell even earlier; others buy late but have more capital on-chain or use cross-chain products and dare to take larger positions. These ultimately determine the final outcome.

When TRUMP's market value was $5 billion, some were doubting the authenticity of the event, while others were already certain that its market value would exceed that of Dogecoin, which was over $60 billion. Some believed that on-chain capital could not support a new token worth $60 billion in just two days, while others understood the significant difference between TRUMP's market value and FDV.

If there isn't enough Sol on-chain and one doesn't use cross-chain products like UniversalX to convert ETH to SOL, they will likely miss out on substantial gains; if one doesn't realize that TRUMP would surpass DOGE, they will likely miss the highest increase; if one doesn't see TRUMP draining liquidity from all other cryptocurrencies, they will likely miss the highest increase; if one doesn't recognize the huge difference between FDV and market value, they will likely miss the highest increase; if one doesn't understand the importance and breakout nature of Trump's coin issuance and the global consensus on the U.S. president, they will still likely miss the highest increase; if TRUMP is viewed as an ordinary meme, the largest increase will also be missed… Tools determine the speed of asset flow, while cognition determines position.

Essential Crypto Products: UniversalX, GMGN, Coinmarketcap

Presidential Crypto Lesson Four: The Significance of Meme

After Trump issued the coin, many "crypto influencers" condemned him for using his power for personal gain, arguing that memes only have PVP attributes and no real value.

However, there seems to be no fairer way to issue assets than through memes. When the "high costs of listing on major centralized cryptocurrency exchanges," "insider information," and "contract pinning" issues persist, memes are the only fair way to issue assets; when some large public chains have "marketing costs of tens of millions of dollars a year," "complex interest groups," and "increasingly high entry barriers for new entrepreneurs," memes are the only relatively fair assets that reassure all participants.

Before the narrative of AI Agents emerged, memes seemed to lack valuable application scenarios. However, after the emergence of AI Agents, people found that memes are just a form of technical product, and how they are used depends on people, not the faults of the memes themselves. When AI Agents encounter memes, many practitioners also discover that memes can drive many interesting initiatives.

Memes are not that great, but the old world is worse.

Essential Crypto Products: Pump.fun, Clanker, Virtuals, ai16z

In Conclusion

The issuance of meme coins by U.S. President Trump is an unprecedented event that will not be the last. It has provided everyone with an incredibly vivid crypto lesson.

In this lesson, some trends have become more apparent: DEX is surpassing CEX to become the new center of cryptocurrency; Solana is surpassing Ethereum to become the new king of public chains; memes are disrupting diluted VC coins, advocating for a fairer way to issue tokens.

In this lesson, some products gained immense exposure, with Moonshot adding 400,000 users in one day, reaching 1 million daily active users; UniversalX's trading volume was 20 times its usual amount; the meme coin issuance platform Pump.fun generated nearly $400 million in revenue in a year; Phantom's daily trading volume exceeded $1.25 billion, with over 8 million requests per minute, continuously challenging the transaction limits of blockchain products.

Trump's issuance of coins is not merely a simple combination of politics and cryptocurrency; it has become an event that breaks boundaries even more than Bitcoin surpassing $100,000, drawing attention from many who are unfamiliar with cryptocurrency. This news became the seventh trending topic on Weibo, topped the social news trending list on Douyin, and made headlines in major U.S. media, with a surge in Google searches for Bitcoin…

The impact of this $80 billion "Trump Crypto Public Class" on the future is still unfolding.