The cryptography market has no peace. Donald Trump’s return to the White House was roller coaster for the sector, and the president’s attitude towards industry has infected some of his counterparts around the world. A few days before its inauguration, he launched the $ Trump and $ Melania Memecoins, which in a few hours was worth more than $ 15 billion (just over 14.3 billion euros). A few weeks later, the President of the Central African Republic, Faustin Archange Touadéra, created $ because in his own image. A few days ago, Javier Milei of Argentina jumped on board and turned to the X social media platform to approve a new cryptocurrency called $ libra. But his support was short -lived: the same day he regretted it, said that he was not linked to the project and removed his tweet. In the three cases, the result was the same. After a vertiginous increase in the value of the asset, uncontrolled falls followed, leading to the almost total loss of the value of the token (active), which left the investors with empty hand.
The launch of $ Trump and $ Melania was a first warning panel. High volatility and the speculative wave left money in the hands of a few, which have made easy yields to the detriment of less experienced investors. The tokens plunged 76% and 90% respectively. The industry has complained: the launch of these meme cryptocurrencies – digital assets without technological base to support them that rises in the heat of social networks, according to the trends and the feeling of users – go against the Grain of what industry is looking for, that is to say to strengthen its credibility and confidence between investors and regulators.
But this was not an isolated case. Faustin-Archange Touadéra, President of the Central African Republic, recently launched the same car $ car, aimed at funding the development and strengthening of the region’s economy. The country of some 5.7 million people already know the crypto. In 2022, he became the second nation in the world, after El Salvador, to adopt Bitcoin as a legal call. However, the experience was short -lived because the measure was declared unconstitutional and had to be reversed.
Today, I stand in front of you again with a gratitude message. Launching $ Car was a success!
I want to personally thank each of you, our community, our supporters and those who believe in our vision. We build in the long term! pic.twitter.com/gr4qu3shk5
– Faustin-Archange Touadéra (@fa_touadera) February 10, 2025
The fate of the same car $ was even worse and its start was bumpy. After the launch, X suspended the account created by the government to promote the assets due to suspicion of the legitimacy of the project. In addition, Deepfake detection tools reported the president’s video as suspect. But Touadéra assured that everything was real and continued to support him: “The launch of $ because was a success!” He declared on X, even if he lost all his value: from his peaks of 0.66 cents on the day of his launch, it is now 0.017, according to CoinmarketCap. Although widely ignored, it was a second red flag.
The announcement made by President Javier Milei of Argentina last Friday was the straw that broke the back of the camel. In a tweet, the president promoted the cryptocurrency of $ Balance, a project of a private company inspired by his own liberal ideas: “This project will be dedicated to encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy, funding small businesses and Argentine companies, “he said. In less than two hours, the token went from $ 0 to 4.5 billion, which disappeared in a few minutes. The portfolios that concentrated most of the tokens withdrew more than $ 90 million and the cryptocurrency collapsed. This was aggravated by suspicions on the fundamental principles of the project that sent fleeing investors. The token finally lost 97% of its value.
Judith Arnal, principal researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute, explains that this is a conventional carpet traction system: “This implies reheating the market with the support of people with high public visibility in order to attract many Investors, so that the price increases and the promoters withdraw ”with the profits. Andrea Venturelli, founder of Decrypto, adds another observation: “Before promoting the token, influencers and prominent personalities of the crypto world already knew the launch and that allowed them to position themselves in front of the public”, to the detriment of the investors Details, which were guided by a recommendation of a political figure like Milei.
Faced with an avalanche of criticism, Milei dissociated himself from the project. He deleted the tweet and assured that he had no connection with the token. “I was not aware of the details of the project and after becoming aware, I decided not to continue to disseminate it,” he said as a means of justification. But it was too late: this alleged mega-scam affected more than 40,000 people with losses greater than $ 4 billion. Many complaints have been filed against the president, accusing him of illicit association, scam and violation of duty as a civil servant. Milei’s damage to the image of Milei must still be seen, but the impact on the cryptography market is clear.
In the eyes of industry, these events tarnish the reputation of industry. Javier Pastor, director of training at Bit2me, is categorical: “These launches are major mistakes. We are concerned about political interference when it is not a well -considered, well thought out and well -trained action. Carlos Salinas, who teaches a master’s degree in blockchain and investing in digital assets at the IEB Business School in Madrid, is more serious. “For a politician, getting hands on cryptocurrencies is nothing more than a symptom of the circus than the speculation economy has become. There are no solid projects or technological developments here, just a pure financial stallion. Prices increase and drop not because of the fundamentals, but because of the degree of fanaticism of those who believe that a famous face is a guarantee of success, “he said.
Samecoin, Shitcoin … The names already reflect their intrinsic value: zero. By their nature, these assets benefit from the support of a famous person, but it is only one side of the medal. If at some point, this same celebrity decides to abandon the project or no longer believes in it, this asset could lose all its value. An example is Dogecoin, which has become a mood thermometer of Elon Musk.
The fact that important figures such as presidents encourage speculation with these announcements generates confusion in the sector. Manuel Villegas, analyst at Julius Baer, recognizes that the risk is that capital flows be redirected to questionable value proposals. But he emphasizes that it is above all a lot of noise. “It is a negative advertisement that affects all the space in general, but in the long term, it does not affect the fundamentals of traditional blockchain.” The pastor agrees with this point of view and deplores that these launches contribute to sending the bad message that investors could generalize at each market, damaging the image of the rest of the cryptocurrency.
History is repeated: this happened with ICOs (offers of initial parts, a method to increase resources for crypto -related projects) in 2017, with NFTS in 2021 and now with Memecoins, Note Venturelli. Salinas puts a name on this phenomenon: the easy money trap. “These are not investments, they are betting. People want easy money, they dream of multiplying their fortune effortlessly, and they complain when the bubble bursts. In the financial jungle, it is not the one who screams the strongest who wins, but the one who understands the best of the rules of the game, ”he says. The industry calls on the financial education of investors to surf this crowded world: three million new tokens were launched in January 2025 only, around 100,000 per day. “Most of them have no value or real utility, generating doubts about the sustainability of this market,” concludes Venturelli.
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