Ever since the 47th President of the United States & First Lady Melania Trump have launched official memecoins ($TRUMP and $MELANIA) under their name, there has been a barrage of scammers launching fake memecoins under other popular celebrities’ names.
Last week, Donald Trump had released his official memecoin on Solana just a day ahead of his inaugural ceremony in Washington DC. The memecoin $TRUMP blew up, accumulating a staggering market cap of $12 billion within just 24 hours. Following the success of $TRUMP token, his wife Melania also launched a token under her name.
Memecoins are cryptocurrencies that are inspired by meme culture on the internet where popular meme characters’ names are used as tokens. Memecoins can be made on a blockchain platform by anyone on platforms like pump.fun and its value is based only on pure hype. It has practically no use case except for hype. Only a handful of memecoins like Doge Coin and Shiba Inu have stood the test of time.
Taking a cue out of Trump and Melania, scammers on social media have been promoting fake memecoins under the name of other celebrities. Here’s a look at the celebrities whose names were targeted by scammers this week.
Ivanka Trump
Ivanka Trump, daughter of Donald Trump, also fell victim to the scam when unknown scammers started promoting a memecoin $IVANKA claiming to be officially endorsed by her. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Ivanka posted a clarification stating,” It has come to my attention that a fake crypto coin called Ivanka Trump or $IVANKA is being promoted without my consent or approval.”
Barron Trump
Barron is the latest in Trump’s family to fall victim to scammers exploiting his name to promote a memecoin $BARRON under his name. The cryptocurrency reached a market value of $460 million before plummeting 95% through misinformation clouds to wreak havoc on investors’ wallets. The occasion functioned as a stark wake-up call about the risks which exist in the unpredictable domain of meme digital currencies.
Dean Norris
Dean Norris, known for his role as Hank Schrader in popular TV series Breaking Bad, is the latest victim of scammers using this modus operandi. Recently, a post from Norris’ official X account claimed launch of $DEAN memecoin as the official token of the actor. An edited image showed Norris holding paper that contained the DEAN memecoin’s name together with its planned launch time in this fake status update that was later eliminated from the site.
On January 26, Norris released a video which confirmed the malicious takeover and declared DEAN as a totally fraudulent cryptocurrency. Norris released an angry statement through social media and told Reddit critics to “screw themselves” because of their supposed mistaken perception of his involvement.
Elon Musk
Scammers have also launched several memecoins under the name of tech mogul and X owner Elon Musk. While other celebrities have taken to X to dispel rumors of their official involvement with any memecoin, Musk has neither confirmed nor denied his association with any cryptocurrency. Until then, scammers are taking full advantage of Elon’s name, milking investors’ money through fake memecoins.
How Memecoins function in market?
Memecoins are fun yet complex subjects of debate in the crypto arena where many dissenters mock them saying their value is next to zero and they are based complete hype. While the optimistic crypto investors are always on the look out for maximizing their earnings through early stage investments in new memecoins.
Precise market research is required by potential investors before engaging cryptocurrency investments particularly as meme coins mainly feed off speculation rather than actual values. False information distributed rapidly on X (formerly Twitter) creates major modifications in market responses which sometimes demonstrate unreasonable behavior. The volatile market behavior of memecoins responds more to social media memes than actual market valuation worth.
Conclusion
While January of 2025 certainly belonged to the hype of memecoins such as $TRUMP and $MELANIA, it also reminded people of the volatilities of crypto world after the two tokens crashed. Now with scammers misusing public figures’ brand identities regardless of their alignment results in substantial financial losses for innocent crypto investors.
Also Read: Hacker Breaches Nasdaq’s X Account, Promotes Fake Memecoin
