Almost half of Trump memecoin buyers are first-time Solana users: Chainalysis

Most buyers of President Donald Trump’s arguable memecoin are retail investors, with galore utilizing Solana for the archetypal clip to bargain the token.

That’s according to blockchain forensics institution Chainalysis, who looked astatine the behaviour of wallets buying the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins since their launches precocious past week.

“These are mostly caller retail buyers,” Chainalysis said successful an X post. “Nearly fractional of buyers created their wallets the time they purchased the tokens.”

Onchain information besides shows that astir 50% of users who clasp TRUMP and/or MELANIA tokens person ne'er bought different Solana token, excluding SOL and stablecoins similar Circle’s USDC.

On January 17, conscionable days earlier his inauguration, Trump shocked the crypto manufacture by launching an authoritative memecoin connected the Solana blockchain. Many successful the crypto manufacture person described Trump’s memecoin arsenic a currency grab, informing that it volition tarnish the already arguable industry.

“Anyone who understands our abstraction knows that memecoins are beauteous overmuch a conveyance for gambling and that personage memecoins are frowned upon and viewed arsenic a grift,” Cameron Chisholm, frontend developer for TikTok-like crypto concern level Token.com, antecedently told DL News.

Onchain data compiled by GeckoTerminal shows that implicit 782,000 idiosyncratic wallets clasp the Trump memecoin.

Chainalysis recovered that astir wallets clasp little than $100 worthy of the memecoins, and implicit 80% are investors who clasp little than $1,000 worthy of assets connected Solana, further suggesting retail popularity.

Trump’s presumption arsenic president whitethorn springiness uninitiated memecoin buyers a mendacious consciousness of security, and blindside those who suffer wealth connected the token.

Memecoins, gag tokens that commercialized solely connected their popularity, person soared successful popularity implicit the past year.

Their utmost volatility makes them fashionable with hopeful retail traders looking to deed it big. But for each victor determination are thousands who lose everything.

Trump meme

In its archetypal fewer days, the TRUMP token skyrocketed to a $15 cardinal marketplace value. Its worth has since halved aft Trump’s woman Melania launched her ain memecoin, and the president failed to notation crypto successful his inauguration speech.

The Melania token apt lured traders distant from Trump’s memecoin arsenic traders rushed to put successful the latest Trump household coin.

Despite the slump, the Trump memecoin is inactive crypto’s third-biggest meme token, down Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, which are valued astatine $51 cardinal and $11 billion, respectively.

A whale’s game

While smaller retail traders marque up the bulk of TRUMP holders, they aren’t the ones who made the astir profit.

60 wallets belonging to whales person truthful acold made profits of implicit $10 cardinal trading TRUMP, according to Chainalysis.

Whale is simply a crypto word for ample entities who power ample amounts of a token of crypto asset, usually successful the millions of dollars.

Chainalysis said whales besides predominate holdings, with astir 40 whale wallets holding 94% of each TRUMP oregon MELANIA tokens.

A DL News investigation previously identified 2 whales who invested astir $1 cardinal each into TRUMP soon aft its launch. They were astatine 1 constituent sitting connected $304 cardinal and $78 cardinal from their investments, respectively.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach retired with tips astatine [email protected].