Categories: Market Watch

Rumored Trump Token $DJT Flying as Traders Bet on Whether It’s Legit

The rumors swirling around DJT haven’t been enough to convince traders on Polymarket, who mostly doubt the Solana-based meme coin is officially linked to former President Donald Trump.

Traders on the blockchain-based prediction site have so far penciled in a 13% chance that “definitive evidence” will emerge by Saturday confirming the former president is associated with DJT—after hovering around 24% most of Tuesday. Regardless, the token has surged 300% over the past day to $0.02, as of this writing. So far, DJT has logged $462 million in trading volume, yielding a market cap of $216 million.

The rumor of an official link was sparked by the tech- and politics-focused publication Pirate Wires on Twitter, which reported that the former president’s 18-year-old son Barron is “spearhe” the operation. “Per conversations, Trump is launching an official token—$DJT on Solana,” Pirate Wires’ wrote on Twitter (aka X).

Polymarket traders have so far bet $1.1 million on DJT’s legitimacy—the biggest bet was a $46,000 “No.” Crypto analytics firm Bubblemaps is similarly skeptical. “No way $DJT is actually from Donald Trump,” the company’s Twitter (aka X) account declared Monday.

“Turns out, nearly half [of DJT’s] supply is held in a few connected wallets,” Bubblemaps founder and analyst Nick Vaiman told Decrypt. “Sniping your own supply is the latest trend, so we weren’t completely shocked. “It’s still hard to believe since Trump hasn’t endorsed it, but as Elon Musk said, the most entertaining outcome is often the most likely,” he continued.

Others on Twitter pointed out that the token was minted a month ago, or that its creator is linked to the cryptocy exchange Kucoin, which is unavailable to people based in the U.S.

Still, DJT has its fair share of believers, including “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli, who was convicted of securities fraud in 2017. The former drug firm executive inked several public bets Tuesday on Crypto Twitter, previously arguing the Polymarket wager “is literally 100% chance.”

“I think [there’s] a decently high chance I’m being freerolled here, and I either owe $70k or he refuses to pay,” the pseudonymous crypto trader Domer, who trades on Polymarket as RevengeTour19B4, said on Twitter of their bet with Shkreli, who declined to use Polymarket.

The crypto trader Alex Wice offered to bet $1 million with Shkreli, while the pseudonymous crypto trader GCR upped the potential anty to $100 million, as others also chimed in. By the end of the day, the blockchain intelligence firm Arkham had placed a $150,000 bounty on its platform to “definitively prove” who DJT’s creator could be.

The former president, who has championed his own line of Polygon-based NFTs, has emerged recently as an advocate of digital assets. Previously describing Bitcoin as something that “seems like a scam,” Trump signaled he would instead be a “crypto president” earlier this month.

After starting to accept crypto donations, Trump has also called for Bitcoin to be “made in the U.S.A.” recently. However, the GOP’s presumptive nominee for 2024 has yet to express an opinion about meme coins—let alone those that may be made in his image without permission.

Terron Gold