In a press conference on January 21, US President Donald Trump responded to questions about his meme coin, TRUMP, admitting that he had limited knowledge of the token despite its market success.

His comments led to a brief dip in the token’s price, which subsequently rebounded.

Donald Trump Talks TRUMP Coin: Price Fluctuates

Speaking from the White House, Trump responded to inquiries about whether he was personally benefiting from the token, stating that he was unsure if he had profited from it.

The conference primarily focused on the announcement of a $500 billion investment in the “Stargate AI” artificial intelligence infrastructure project. President Trump was joined by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle’s Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.

When asked about TRUMP, the President appeared uncertain about its details. 

“I don’t know where it is. I don’t know much about it other than I launched it, other than it was very successful,” Trump said.

Following his remarks, the token’s value briefly plummeted, prompting reactions from the financial community. Alex Krüger, founder of Aike Capital, highlighted the decline on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart also weighed in.

“Trump just nuked his own memecoin, Seyffart noted on X.

Despite the temporary setback, TRUMP quickly rebounded. At the time of reporting, it was trading at $41.24, reflecting a 15% increase in the past 24 hours.

The meme coin’s market capitalization stood at $8.24 billion. This marked a notable increase as the token’s market cap dropped to $7.5 billion after inauguration day.

When informed that his token generated billions, Trump remarked, “Several billion … that’s peanuts for these guys,” gesturing toward the CEOs accompanying him.

The “Official Trump” token, launched last week, experienced a rapid surge of over 1,100%, rising from $6 to $75 within 36 hours. However, the ownership stake remains unclear, with two entities tied to the Trump Organization controlling 80% of the supply. 

Notably, the latest Forbes analysis debunked claims of a $58 billion windfall for Trump. The analysis highlighted that these estimates were based on the token’s fully diluted valuation, which factors in non-circulating tokens. With 800 million tokens locked, an 80% stake is estimated at $6.2 billion, though this figure is subject to market fluctuations.

Despite the volatility, the broader market has shown significant interest in meme coins. As BeInCrypto reported earlier, Rex Shares recently filed for meme coin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that include TRUMP, BONK, and DOGE.

Meanwhile, meme coins stay true to their volatile nature, with TRUMP not being the only one experiencing sharp fluctuations. First Lady Melania Trump’s meme coin, MELANIA, hit an all-time high of $13 on January 20 but later dropped to around $4. 

In an apparent social media scam, individuals based in the Philippines tried to suggest that the US Treasury created an XRP wallet.

Although this incident immediately had substantial red flags, it was still circulated by popular X (formerly) accounts. This is a worrying sign about the state of the community in 2025, and there’s no easy solution.

Did the US Treasury Buy XRP?

Since President Trump took office, social media scams have been taking off in the crypto space. After the launch of the TRUMP meme coin, figures in his orbit have released their own rug pulls or egregiously sketchy token projects.

Another scam is now taking off, where someone claimed that the US Treasury opened an XRP wallet.

“[The] latest example of the rampant misinformation problem in the XRP community. This time we have fake KYC’d accounts from the Philippines pretending to be the US Treasury and issuing fake tokens on the XRPL. I’m being genuine when I ask, how do people actually fall for this stuff?” asked Zach Rynes, Chainlink Community Liason.

The US Treasury XRP Wallet scam took off quickly after it was first posted, with several major accounts boosting it. This fake wallet allegedly interacted with major institutions like Bank of America and JPMorgan, but on-chain analysis reveals that it’s based in the Philippines.

A non-US account clearly activated the phony Treasury wallet.

In fairness, a few factors in the broader crypto ecosystem worked to make this hoax seem more plausible. For one, Trump has endorsed a US Bitcoin Reserve, and several states are trying to launch their own reserves.

The price of XRP has been soaring, and some community members believe that the Treasury under Trump could want in on the profits.

However, hoaxes like this work especially well on a vulnerable sector of the community: newcomers. Nearly half of TRUMP holders have never invested in crypto before, and this is a clear sign of the new interest in crypto.

If uninformed people hear verified credible accounts claiming that the US Treasury is boosting XRP, they might not have the background to dispute it.

Rynes went on to state that a trained eye could immediately see the red flags in this incident, but it’s “hard to know what the solution is” to major social media hoaxes like this.

Ultimately, the crypto community will need to do some real soul-searching, or scams could seriously sully the industry’s long-term reputation.