Launched three days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, the crypto $ Trump, without concrete utility, nevertheless experienced a spectacular outbreak.

What if political notoriety became a sound and stumbling currency? It is the bet, provocative and potentially lucrative, that Donald Trump made by launching his cryptocurrency, soberly baptized $ Trumpon January 17, 2025, three days before his official return to the White House.

Launched three days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, the crypto $ Trump, despite lacking any concrete utility, nevertheless experienced a spectacular breakout. How can this phenomenon be explained?

What if political notoriety became a tradable and volatile currency? It's a bet, both bold and potentially lucrative, that Donald Trump made by launching his cryptocurrency, simply named $ Trump, on January 17, 2025, three days before his official return to the White House.

This token, marketed on the Solara blockchain, even experienced a dazzling ascent. Introduced at around 8 dollars, it reached a peak at $ 77.24 on January 19, 2025, briefly pushing its capitalization to over $ 27 billion. However, this momentum quickly fizzled out. After stabilizing around $ 8.46 in early April, the token price fell to $ 7.50 on April 17.

Behind this digital token, lacking any real utility, lies a phenomenon well-known to economists: speculation, fueled by collective belief, network effects, and the charisma of a politician. A bubble can emerge even in a perfectly rational market, as soon as investors anticipate a continuous increase in price. Abreu and Brunnermeier extend this analysis by showing how strategic behavior - everyone hoping to exit before the others - can artificially sustain a valuation disconnected from fundamentals.

From a historical perspective, all bubbles, from Dutch Tulips to Bitcoin, share the same core: an attractive story followed by a brutal setback.

The $ Trump is not only a volatile asset; it is also the revealer of an increasingly porous border between political capital and financial capital. Can we still speak of a simple cryptocurrency initiative? Or is it a symptom of an economy in which personal influence becomes a monetary lever?

As an economist, I offer here a critical reading of this unprecedented phenomenon at the crossroads of markets, symbols, and power.

Use Value vs. Market Value

In the universe of cryptocurrencies, there are broadly two main families. On one hand, projects based on technological or financial innovation, such as Ethereum, stablecoins, or DeFi protocols. On the other, we have tokens without any practical utility. Possessing strong speculative potential, they are often powered by an active community or an emblematic figure. The $ Trump falls fully into this second category. A distinction is often made between Functional crypto-actives (Utility Tokens) designed for a specific purpose and those without use value, intended purely for speculation, such as SamCoin.

This dissociation between usage value and market valuation is not specific to the $ Trump. It has been observed since the first academic works on Bitcoin, which show that it struggles to fulfill the classic economic functions of money. As the economist Figuet remarks:

"Bitcoin cannot be considered as a currency: the absence of intrinsic value and legal courses results in a strong volatility which does not allow it to fulfill traditional monetary functions."

The $ Trump pushes this logic even further by removing any technical or transactional dimension in favor of a pure speculative narrative.

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Economic Narratives

Like Dogecoin or Shiba Inu, the $ Trump does not offer any concrete service, is not based on any specific technical protocol, and does not grant access to products or rights. Its only value is founded on its image: that of a controversial president, known for his strong mobilization power, transforming his popularity into financial assets. This lack of "fundamentals" did not prevent it from experiencing a dazzling valuation (briefly). In a market where expectations are self-fulfilling, the value of an asset can then be born solely from the collective belief that it will take on value. If enough people believe that the $ Trump will rise, they buy, thus increasing the price and reinforcing this belief.

This phenomenon is not new. The economist Shiller has shown that speculative bubbles are not based solely on economic data but also on shared beliefs, amplified by the media and by collective stories. He further deepened this idea by introducing the concept of Narrative Economics: these simple, viral, and emotional stories that shape our economic decisions. The story of the $ Trump is an almost caricatural example: a president who becomes a currency, a token as a political declaration, a digital active ingredient fueled by an implicit promise of power.

The $ Trump is not simply a crypto product; it is a symbolic political object, imbued with a powerful story and a strong emotional charge. And in the markets, sometimes, that's enough.

Trump Brand Value

Unlike other SamCoins, the $ Trump is not born from a simple Internet meme or anonymous collective craze. It is backed by a very real political figure. It thus embodies a turning point: the direct monetization of political capital.

In economics, we have long spoken of intangible capital to designate non-tangible resources such as reputation, visibility, or