share this article

A meme coin called Restore the Republic (RTR) on the Solana blockchain saw extreme price volatility on Thursday, rising to a market cap of $155 million before plunging 95% after false claims of a connection to former President Donald Trump.

The dramatic rise and fall of the RTR token followed social media posts from Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump touting an upcoming DeFi announcement and praising the crypto community for embracing their father. Eric Trump had previously tweeted that he had “fallen in love with Crypto/DeFi,” leading to speculation about a potential Trump-backed crypto project.

The token’s price shot up from $0.0005 to $0.1460 within hours, before quickly dropping to $0.0076, according to data from GeckoTerminal. This volatility was fueled by influential figures on X promoting the token as potentially associated with the former president. At the time of writing, the token is currently trading at $0.0084.

Ryan Fournier, president of Students for Trump, initially amplified the rumor by stating, “rumor has it that the official Trump coin is out… called Restore the Republic.” However, he later deleted the tweet and clarified, “I was told by sources that Don Jr. would be supporting this token. That’s why I said rumor. I’m not a big crypto fan and I was in no way involved with this project.”

The bubble burst when Eric Trump explicitly condemned the token’s association with his father. “This is absolutely false,” he tweeted in response to claims of an official Trump token. Both Eric and Donald Trump Jr. warned against unauthorized projects. Donald Jr. posted: “The only official project will be announced directly by us, and it will be fair to everyone. Don’t be fooled, stay tuned for the real deal.”

The incident has shed light on the volatile nature of the meme coin market and its susceptibility to misinformation. Crypto observers pointed to evidence that Kanpai Labs, the entity behind the Kanpai Pandas NFTs, had advertised the token ahead of its launch. Bags, Kanpai’s pseudonymous creator, claimed in a now-deleted post that the Trump family had selected the launch date before “hitting us hard.”

The dramatic swing in the RTR token shows us the importance of due diligence in the crypto space, especially when it comes to projects that claim to have a prominent association. It also shows how much influence social media personalities and political figures can have on crypto markets, even without direct involvement.

This isn’t the first Trump-themed token to stir controversy. Recently, another token called DJT made headlines when Martin Shkreli claimed that he and Donald Trump’s son Barron created it. The DJT token then crashed 90% last week when a major token holder appeared to sell en masse.

The episode highlights Donald Trump’s enduring influence among crypto enthusiasts. Analytics firm LunarCrush reports that there are currently 162 Trump- or MAGA-themed crypto tokens, up from 111 just two weeks ago. This proliferation of Trump-related tokens highlights how politics, understood in the sense of personalities within the political sphere, intersects with crypto, as well as the potential for such exploitation in unregulated markets.

Despite the crash, RTR still maintains a significant rise since its launch, with around $130 million in trading volume, according to data from Gecko Terminal. This incident serves as a cautionary tale for investors in the crypto space, highlighting the need for thorough research and skepticism towards unverified claims from celebrities or political endorsements.

share this article