Memecoins
Political Coins Rise After Trump’s Libertarian Convention Speech
Former US President Donald Trump’s appearance at the Libertarian National Convention may have brought heckles and jeers, but it provided a boost to political coin-ops.
The Trump-themed cryptocurrency MAGA Hat (MAGA) surged more than 150% in the past 24 hours, while the MAGA meme coin (TRUMP) rose a more modest 12.7% on the day on the next day.
Interestingly, the ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE) token is also up 4.7%. Originally created as a governance token for a now-defunct DAO aimed at buy a copy of the American Constitution at auction, it has now effectively become a politically themed coin, having no use once the project has “run its course.”
After Trump’s appearance at the Libertarian National Convention, which saw crowds on several occasions boo Throughout his speech, the potential Republican nominee took to his social media platform Truth Social to talk the “enthusiasm” of the crowd.
During his speech, Trump pledged to commute the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, if elected. Silk Road was a peer-to-peer darknet marketplace that used Bitcoin to facilitate the sale of drugs and other illicit materials; Ulbricht was sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole in 2015 for money laundering, fraud and drugs.
This isn’t the first time Trump has pondered Ulbricht’s situation; after his 2020 electoral defeat, he would have considered grant clemency to the founder of the Silk Road as part of a series of pardons before Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021. In the event, he did not do so.
Trump attempted to position himself as a pro-crypto candidate during his speech, promising to end Joe Biden’s “crusade to crush crypto” and prevent the creation of a US central bank digital currency ( CBDC).
Edited by Stacy Elliott.