$TRUMP and $MELANIA Tokens: Retail Investors Flood In, But Whales Dominate the Market

Cryptocurrency is a rapidly evolving realm, and one of the latest phenomena to attract attention is the trend toward theme- or personality-based tokens.

Most recently, the Solana blockchain has seen the emergence of $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens, which are drawing interest, it seems, from both retail investors and high-net-worth individuals.

However, what on-chain analysis reveals is that these two tokens are currently the site of a market dynamic that is both intriguing and complex—one that is exhibiting a clear divide between small-scale retail participation and the overwhelming influence of just a few key holds.

Retail investors predominantly hold $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens; the average wallet contains less than $100 worth of assets. These numbers indicate that the tokens enjoy popularity among everyday traders. Indeed, they’re the weekend warriors of crypto, the ones who trudged through the week and now are plowing back into the market. Oddly enough, over 80% of $TRUMP and $MELANIA token holders have less than $1,000 in assets on Solana, which trades in some of the same circles as the tokens.

A noteworthy amount of these retail investors are first-timers in the Solana ecosystem. Almost 50% of the holders of the $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens had never before made a Solana-based altcoin purchase, and numerous wallet creators did so on the same day they initiated the purchase of these tokens. This influx of new activity spotlights the tokens’ pull for first-time buyers, who might be driven more by speculative interest or sheer hype than by any substantive knowledge of the Solana blockchain or its overall ecosystem.

In spite of this retail enthusiasm, profits remain modest for most holders. As of January 21, over 77% of wallets holding $TRUMP have recorded gains of less than $100. If we can take anything away from these figures, it might be this: The small scale of retail investment is, in a way, a vote of confidence. We’re investing in projects we believe in, for a reason. And at $TRUMP’s current development stage, these under-the-radar gains are perhaps a sign of the token’s potential.

Although retail investors propel much of the activity involving $TRUMP and $MELANIA, these markets are still dominated by a few, wealthy investors. On-chain data provided by Chainalysis Reactor illustrates this quite clearly. Of the approximately 1,050,000 $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens that exist, we can identify 40 Ethereum wallets that hold 992,658 of those tokens (an approximately 41% share). That is to say, 40 Ethereum wallets hold almost half of the $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens in existence.

The contrast between retail investors and whales is stark. Among our modest amount of holdings, we retail investors are over here. In a balance-of-power kind of way, this concentration among whales is offsetting and striking. And it is striking, not just because we are over here with our small and dispersed number of holdings, but because those whales are, in essence, carrying around quite a few large and heavy bags. Bags, says CryptoQuant, that don’t even seem to have been packed very well.

Whale activity goes beyond just holding. Once 1 billion $TRUMP tokens were minted, nearly all the funds went into just four wallets. These wallets were assigned either to hold the tokens or to make them liquid at exchanges. Centralized like this, the tokens can exert a pretty decent influence over price trends, being either pushed or pulled.

The flow of new retail investors into the market, most of whom have no prior experience with Solana altcoins, indicates that $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens are riding a wave of speculative interest. For these buyers, the tokens are but a small part of the P2E trend that they think is going somewhere. And oh, by the way, isn’t it nice to think that we’re on the ground level of a nascent altcoin that might someday be worth something?

Even though retail buyers are more numerous, they have far less financial clout than a handful of powerful whales. This shows up in who gets what share of the profits: most of us with wallets have earned minimal returns, while a top group of 60 whales has collectively pocketed millions.