A Donald Trump-themed memecoin called Restore the Republic (RTR), rumored to be backed by the former US President and current Republican presidential candidate, rose to a market cap of $155 million hours from launch. It then lost 95% of that value after Donald Trump’s son, Eric Trump, clarified it was not backed by the former president.
The crypto ecosystem was pumped and awaited an official Trump memecoin as Eric Trump took to X earlier in the week, leaving a message about such an asset. In his post, Eric Trump mentioned, “I have truly fallen in love with Crypto / DeFi. Stay tuned for a big announcement…” As many waited for more news, rumors circulated about the RTR memecoin deployed on Thursday being this anticipated asset.
Ryan Fournier, a conservative activist and the chair of the Students for Trump group, gave impetus for the rumor to spread like wildfire. In a now-deleted post, he stated, “Hearing word that @RestoretheRep is the official trump coin. Shot to 100 million market cap in an hour. wow. $RTR”.
Eric Trump quashed the claims right after. He let his online followers know that “Beware of fake tokens! The only official Trump project has NOT been announced! You will hear it here first.” Soon after, RTR crashed, with 95% of its market cap vanishing.
Ryan Fournier addressed the situation and accusations of promoting the token, “I was told by sources that Don Jr. would be backing this token. That is why I said rumor-Im not a big cyrpto guy and I was not in any way involved in this project.”
On-chain analytics platform Lookonchain provided information about what had occurred, mentioning, “5 Insider Wallets Earned Over $4M on $RTR in Just 6 Hours!” These wallets spent over $880,000 of SOL to buy 104.64 million RTR tokens. When they dumped the Trump-themed assets, they bagged $5.05 million, amounting to $4.17 million in profits.
