MAGA memecoins rally as crypto traders bet on Trump’s return to the White House

Donald Trump is set to be inaugurated on Monday, Jan. 20, as the 47th president of the United States and memecoin traders are bullish heading into the event.

The rise in memecoin activity over the past year gave way to sectors within the meme universe — specifically, in this instance, “PolitiFi” coins. Short for “political finance,” this is the term coined by CoinGecko to describe memecoins inspired by political figures but have no official affiliation to any of them.

Several of these tokens rocketed higher throughout the 2024 election campaign last summer and fall. Some have crashed out while others have held up relatively well, even as the entire sector crashed following the presidential election on Nov. 5, 2024.

But as President Joe Biden’s term comes to a close and President-elect Trump returns to the White House, these political degens have awakened.

"The next few days and weeks are shaping up to be a whirlwind as the Trump administration returns to Washington, D.C. with plans to issue digital asset-related executive orders and as lawmakers are set to focus on crypto debanking," writes The Block's Sarah Wynn. "Multiple crypto organizations are also hosting parties in Washington over the next week to embrace the incoming administration and lawmakers."

MAGA (TRUMP) is perhaps the most prominent of these memecoins. Its website claims the token has raised more funds ($2.1 million) for “U.S. Veterans and Child Trafficking Prevention than any other cryptocurrency.” MAGA has a $152 million market cap, rising 25% over the past seven days and 107% over the past month to trade around $3.36 at publication time. The token hit its all-time high ($17.51) last June. MAGA Hat (MAGA) is another popular token and has a market cap of around $42 million. The token is up 15% over the past week and 40% over the past month.

Several Trump-inspired memecoins have market caps under $20 million but are nonetheless seeing a surge of trading activity in recent days. Super Trump (STRUMP) 42% over the past week, while Maga: Fight for Trump (TRUMPCOIN) and Dark MAGA (DMAGA) are higher by more than 55%.

Relative newcomers Patriot (PATRIOT) sports a market cap of over $60 million and is trading lower by 20% over the past week while the $25 million market cap token Magaverse (MVRS) has rocketed 145% over the same period. Both launched after Nov. 4.

However, the largest PolitiFi coin by market cap goes to Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — not to be confused with dogecoin — is based on the Trump-created department of the same name led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. At press time, the token has a market cap of $242 million and trades around $0.248, up 45% over the past week.

According to DOGE's description , the team "relinquished control" of the contract and removed the Liquidity Provider (LP) tokens from circulation, which may account for the token's popularity. The description also claims the token is "supported by Elon Musk and the Doge team."

All told, the overall PolitiFi market cap is $986 million, a 5.2% change in the last 24 hours according to CoinGecko. Meanwhile, the GMCI Meme index is up more than 8% to 456.06. The GMMEME contains the 30 leading memecoins by market capitalization.

After a period of consolidation, the overall crypto market has perked up this week. The price of bitcoin price broke above $100,000 on Friday morning — its highest level since Jan. 7, after which it plunged near the $90,000 level.

Trump intends to issue an executive order to list crypto as a national policy priority after being sworn in next Monday, according to Bloomberg .