Donald Trump is seemingly now in the cryptocurrency game after he was gifted 500 billion âLetâs Go [Brandon]â tokens by a blundering Trumpworld crypto investor.
One might think an association with the former president would boost the meme coinâs value. But instead, the opposite has occurred.
Between noon Wednesdayâthe day the interview was postedâand early Friday afternoon, the crypto tokenâs value had fallen nearly 19 percent.
Trumpâs coins are already worth about $10,000 less, now down to $45,000âa minuscule $0.00000009 apieceâthough their value could rise dramatically if they take off the way other meme coins have.
Trumpâs post-presidential office didnât immediately return The Daily Beastâs request for comment. Itâs not yet clear whether he has actually taken ownership of the tokens.
The gift was made by the coinâs most vocal backer, hedge funder and diehard Trump supporter James Koutoulas, which he presented via a podcast hosted by D-list Trumpworld personality David J. Harris. (According to Koutoulas, Harris is also a backer of the coin.)
âSounds good to me!â Trump said of the gift. âI donât know exactly what it means, but it sounds good to me.â
According to Harrisâ description, the coinâs backers intend to use the tokens to support the âFreedom Truckersâ who have repeatedly tried and failed to form a convoy in the Washington, D.C. area, and the âfiremen, police, nurses, doctorsâ who have been laid off because of vaccine mandates, which have since largely been loosened.
âIâll tell you what, those groups are the right groups to support⌠Theyâre great. Theyâre great patriots, great people,â Trump said.
Koutoulas told The Daily Beast on Friday afternoon that he had yet to hear from Trump, while on Twitter he wrote that he was âdeeply honoredâ Harris had hawked the coin.
Itâs not clear how a meme coin will accomplish the objectives outlined on the podcast, not to mention that the previous iteration of the cryptocurrency was an absolute disaster.
As The Daily Beast reported in February, the initial token took its inspiration from the âLetâs Go Brandonâ slogan that emerged after a NASCAR race last year. At the time, the crowd had loudly chanted âFuck Joe Bidenâ following the victory of driver Brandon Brown.
While interviewing Brown, however, an NBC reporter incorrectly relayed the chant as âLetâs Go Brandon.â
The slogan quickly took hold among Biden opponents, many of whom seized on the moment as an example of media censorship.
The crypto token launched soon after, and its market value soared to a peak of more than $500 million; it even briefly looked like the token might land an official NASCAR sponsorship deal. Those plans fell apart, and the coin plummeted 99.5 percent from its high.
Amid the collapse, several of the tokenâs investors and organizers began to feud. Koutoulas prepared to file a lawsuit claiming that some of those individuals had helped fuel the decline by selling off large volumes of their holdings.
On the contrary, one of those people told The Daily Beast that the coinâs other backers had grown tired of Koutoulasâ aggressive political advocacy and that they had splintered off as a result. âGuys hanging out in Puerto Rico donât want to antagonize the government. Itâs the opposite,â the person said of crypto investors who live there.
In the end, some of the parties reached a ceasefire.
In an agreement hashed out in February in part by Koutoulas, media executive James Heckman, and representatives of Brown, they agreed to band together to launch a new version of the coinâthe one President Trump was gifted.
It seems things have remained political after all. âPeople canât stop me from using my political speech,â Koutoulas said.