Solana trader loses $892K on Trump’s crypto executive order FOMO

A Solana (SOL) investor has accrued significant losses almost amounting to $900,000, after making a series of bad trades and swaps on several tokens. As reported by crypto transactions tracker Lookonchain, the trader’s only profitable move garnered a mere $231.

In the early hours of Friday, Lookonchain spotted a Solana holder who had made losses worth $892K, by trading a total of 13 tokens. 

They had withdrawn 4,248 SOL tokens from exchanges, hoping to cash in on the memecoin surge sparked by President Donald Trump and the First Lady’s launch of TRUMP and MELANIA tokens. However, their trading strategy proved disastrous, with almost every trade resulting in losses.

User transaction history | Lookonchain

According to data shared by Lookonchain, the trader executed 13 separate transactions over the past two days. One token, Ainty, counted profits slightly above $200. The rest of the trades saw the holdings flash with negatives, including a staggering $456,400 on the memecoin Alon (ALON) and $254,500 on Rus Yusupov-linked Vinecoin (VINE).

Trump’s memecoin sparks FOMO; Big gains and tearful losses

On January 17, President Donald Trump launched the TRUMP token, based on the Solana blockchain. Within three hours, the TRUMP token’s market capitalization surged to nearly $9 billion, with its price moving up by more than 200 per cent. 

Two days after TRUMP’s debut, First Lady Melania Trump launched her own self-titled meme token, MELANIA, which caused the former to plummet by 47%.

Within the brief window between the two launches, some traders managed to capitalize on the hype surrounding the tokens. On January 20, Lookonchain revealed one trader spent $688,000 worth of SOL to buy over 5 million MELANIA. He later sold all the tokens and made 62 times his investments, counting profits above $40 million.

Another trader, who also rode his luck in November’s Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT) market surge with a $7.7 million profit, walked away with $28.4M and $6.36M gains on TRUMP $MELANIA, respectively.

However, not everyone had a field day. Lookonchain flagged a wallet tied to crypto influencer Ansem, which lost over $2.5 million on the TRUMP token. The wallet had spent $9.3 million in USDC to purchase the token at $48, only to sell it at $35, ending up with $6.8 million.

Since President Trump officially entered the Oval Office on Monday, TRUMP and Melania tokens have witnessed a downtick in prices and trading volumes. At the time of writing, TRUMP was trading around $34, marking a 51% decline from its peak on January 19. 

Similarly, the MELANIA token has seen even steeper losses, with its price plummeting nearly 80% from its all-time high of $13 on January 20, now hovering just above $2.5.

Memecoins face criticism and backlash

Some industry experts believe the launch of the TRUMP token spells doom for the whole crypto sector. The naysayers were enraged by Trump’s recent remarks when he was asked about the token’s early success at an AI press conference last Monday.

“I don’t know much about it other than I launched it, other than it was very successful.” He further dismissed the $9 billion market cap, remarking that “several billion – that’s peanuts for these guys,” President Trump replied.

CoinCorner CEO Danny Scott called the Official Trump token a “publicity stunt” that will tarnish the credibility of the whole crypto industry.

“Trump’s comments about not knowing much about the coin back up my opinion that he is making a mockery of the industry. It’s a stunt,” Scott told the BBC.

That said, Jeff Dorman, an analyst at investment firm Arca, argued that the TRUMP token has opened the door for other entities to leverage crypto as tools for capital formation. 

“TRUMP token just signaled to every company, municipality, university & individual brand that crypto can now be used as a capital formation and customer bootstrapping mechanism,” said Dorman.

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