Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash and edited by the author.
Key Points
- The value of the RTR token has fluctuated dramatically due to misleading support.
- Trump’s sons officially warn about fraudulent cryptocurrency tokens.
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Solana Blockchain’s meme coin Restore the Republic (RTR) experienced extreme price volatility on Thursday, surging to a market cap of $155 million before crashing 95% after false claims were made about its ties to former President Donald Trump.
The dramatic rise and fall of the RTR token came after Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump posted on social media teasing an upcoming DeFi announcement and praising the crypto community for embracing their father. Eric Trump had previously tweeted that he was “in love with crypto/DeFi,” which sparked speculation about potential crypto projects Trump might support.
According to data from GeckoTerminal, the token’s price surged from $0.0005 to $0.1460 in a matter of hours before plummeting to $0.0076. The volatility was fueled by X influencers promoting the token as possibly being associated with the former president. As of this writing, the token is currently trading at $0.0084.
Trump Students President Ryan Fournier initially amplified the rumor, saying, “There is a rumor going around that there is an official Trump coin… called Restore the Republic.” However, he later deleted the tweet and said, “I heard from a source that Don Jr. will be sponsoring this token. That’s why I said rumor. I am not a crypto person and I had no involvement in this project whatsoever.”
The bubble burst when Eric Trump explicitly denied that the token had anything to do with his father. He tweeted in response to claims of an official Trump token, “This is absolutely false.” Both Eric and Donald Trump Jr. issued warnings about unlicensed projects. Donald Jr. posted, “The only official project we will release ourselves and it will be fair to everyone. Don’t be fooled. Stay tuned for the real deal.”
The incident highlighted the volatile nature of the meme coin market and its vulnerability to misinformation. Cryptocurrency observers have pointed to evidence that Kanpai Labs, the company behind the Kanpai Pandas NFT, advertised the token before its launch. In a now-deleted post, Bags, the pseudonymous creator of Kanpai, claimed that the launch date was chosen before the Trump family “began to slam us.”
The dramatic fluctuations in the RTR token demonstrate the importance of due diligence in the crypto space, especially when it comes to projects that claim to have connections with celebrities. It also shows how much influence social media figures and politicians can have on the crypto market without their direct involvement.
This isn’t the first Trump-themed token to face controversy. Another token called DJT recently made headlines after Martin Shkreli claimed that he and Donald Trump’s son Barron created it. The DJT token crashed 90% last week as large token holders appeared to be selling off their holdings.
The episode highlights the continued influence of Donald Trump among crypto enthusiasts. Analytics firm LunarCrush reports that there are now 162 Trump- or MAGA-themed crypto tokens, up from 111 just two weeks ago. The surge in Trump-related tokens shows how politics, understood as a figure within the political arena, intersects with crypto, and how this kind of exploitation can occur in unregulated markets.
Despite the crash, RTR has maintained a significant uptrend since its launch, with trading volume reaching around $130 million, according to data from Gecko Terminal. This incident is a warning to investors in the cryptocurrency space, and highlights the need for thorough scrutiny and skepticism around unverified claims of celebrities or political endorsements.
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