Yesterday, many tech sector CEOs piled into the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., for Donald Trump’s inauguration. Silicon Valley leaders in attendance included Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, who addressed the crowd.
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While many influential figures from the industry have chosen to embrace Trump, visiting his Mar-a-Lago estate and making donations to his inaugural fund, one of the sector’s most unspoken voices has maintained his anti-Trump stance.Â
Mark Cuban threw his weight behind Kamala Harris and has publicly criticized Trump many times despite initially supporting him in 2016.
Cuban is also known for being a vocal crypto supporter, praising meme coins such as Dogecoin (~DOGEUSD) and Shiba Inu (~SHIBUSD) . Recently, though, he shared his scathing take on a crypto that has been surging in popularity since Trump’s reelection, making a dire prediction for anyone who has invested in it.
Mark Cuban recently issued a dire warning for crypto investors, cautioning them to be careful with Donald Trump’s new meme coin (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for WIRED)
Cuban predicts dark days ahead for Trump crypto holders
Known for his years as a judge on Shark Tank, Cuban has gained popularity in recent years for his pro-crypto stances. He has expressed support for digital assets ranging from Bitcoin (~BTCUSD)  and Ethereum (~ETHUSD)  to Dogecoin, created initially as a joke.
But Cuban doesn’t think there’s anything funny about a certain crypto that has been trending lately. Specifically, a meme coin whose value literally rises and falls with the popularity of a certain internet fad.
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In this case, the trend in question is Trump. Since its launch a few days ago, the OFFICIAL $TRUMP crypto token has surged more than 500%. Trump posted about it on his X account, promoting the crypto.
This quickly prompted ethical concerns from experts who saw it as a potential conflict of interest from an incoming U.S. president. However, Cuban has outlined other concerns and examined them from a financial perspective.
In a post on X, he responded to a post praising the Trump meme coin, implying that he thinks it will prevent the crypto industry from gaining legitimacy and could lead to further scams targeting people with a limited understanding of the technology.
Mint it, Print it, Sell it Fuck it. That is the mantra for the world you are suggesting.
This is the biggest bunch of self serving Bullshit I have ever heard. In your world there is no ownership. Just speculation.
Hello every scam targeted at everyone and anyone who has… https://t.co/OgA1kE9aAX
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) January 20, 2025
In a separate post on Bluesky, he laid out the problems he sees with TRUMP crypto, drawing a subtle comparison between Trump and ponzi scheme enactor Bernie Madoff.
“It’s just a matter of time until a lot of people lose money from this,” he stated, discussing the new TRUMP memecoin. “I’m a crypto fan. This is not crypto any more than Madoff was just buying and selling shares of stock.”
Cuban didn’t provide any further context regarding why he feels TRUMP isn’t a safe investment. But as some crypto purists have argued that meme coins should not be considered actual crypto, due to their lack of real world utility, that may be part of his thought process.
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Within a few hours of its launch, TRUMP crypto had raised almost $5.5 billion. While it is still unclear exactly how much Donald Trump himself will profit from the meme coin’s success, BBC reports that CIC Digital LLC, the Trump Organization affiliate that helped with the launch, owns 80% of the crypto’s tokens.
Is it smart to invest in Trump?
During the election, Trump vowed to usher in a new era of crypto regulation, a dramatic shift from his previous position that included calling Bitcoin a “scam against the dollar.” This stance generated a lot of positive momentum for crypto markets but that doesn’t mean all coins and tokens will benefit in the same way.
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Meme coins are often written off as unstable investments due to their highly volatile nature and lack of any actual value, either economic or intrinsic. This can make them enticing for risk-savvy traders who enjoy that type of investing, but historically, being closely linked to Trump hasn’t been good for long term value growth.
Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) , the parent company of Truth Social, is falling today, despite Trump recently returning to the White House. And the price of TRUMP crypto is falling as well, which may be seen as an indication that Cuban’s bearish thesis is correct.
Other experts have expressed similar takes on $TRUMP crypto. WIRED reports that “As the Trump organizations enrich themselves through the sale of tokens, other investors—at least some of whom are presumably diehard Trump supporters—may therefore suffer a fall in the value of their coins.”
The outlet also notes that the upcoming release of more tokens is likely to put downward pressure on current tokens, as it would ramp up supply without a clear increase in demand.Â
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