Melania Trump, wife of the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, launched her own meme coin, $MELANIA. Announced late Sunday (U.S. time), the token quickly garnered attention and caused a significant dip in Donald's Trump’s meme coin, $TRUMP, which saw a brief decline of 50%. 

The Birth of $MELANIA

Melania Trump made the announcement across her social media platforms, stating, “The official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $MELANIA now.” The coin is built on the Solana blockchain, known for its speed and scalability, and falls under the growing trend of meme coins, a category of cryptocurrency often influenced by social media and internet culture.

The project formed a partnership with Jupiter to ensure a “secure and easy purchasing experience.”

Token Distribution and Allocation

According to the $MELANIA token’s official website, the total supply is set at 1 billion tokens. The distribution is as follows:

• 35% for the Team: This portion is distributed to the team behind $MELANIA, with a lock-up period of 30 days. After that, 10% of the team's allocation (or 3% of the total supply) will be unlocked. Over the next 12 months, the remaining 90% of the team’s tokens will be released incrementally.

• 20% for the Treasury: A portion is set aside for the project's treasury, which is meant to support its long-term growth and stability.

• 15% for Public Distribution: Tokens that will be available for purchase by the public.

• 10% for Liquidity Reserves: This ensures the coin remains liquid on various trading platforms.

The current supply of $MELANIA is reported to be 1 billion tokens, with a fully diluted market valuation of $3.51 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

However, some analysts have raised concerns. Blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps pointed out that nearly 90% of the total supply of $MELANIA is in a single wallet, which does not align with the token’s claimed distribution. 

Is $MELANIA Really a Meme Coin, or Something More?

While Melania Trump’s $MELANIA coin is officially branded as a “meme coin,” it appears that there may be more behind its launch than just the typical meme-inspired humor. 

The project’s website explicitly states that the coin is intended for “support” and “engagement,” but it also stresses that it is “not intended” to be an investment opportunity. This messaging suggests that the coin’s value is more likely to be driven by social influence rather than technological or financial fundamentals.

According to Head of Product Business Operations at Coinbase, Conor Grogan, the wallet behind the creation of Melania Trump's token traded on pump.fun before, and wasn't a multisig like the Official Trump token.

"My guess is that this token was handled by a different team than TRUMP's. That one looks like professional market makers, this one honestly looks like a college kids," he wrote on X.