Former US President Donald Trump, made headlines with his recent attendance at the Libertarian National Convention. Although Trump’s move was the subject of ridicule and criticism, political meme coins managed to benefit from it.
The Trump-themed MAGA Hat (MAGA) cryptocurrency is up over 150% in the past 24 hours, while the MAGA (TRUMP) meme coin is up a more modest 12.7% overnight.
ConstitutionDAO (PEOPLE) token also benefited from this trend and increased by 4.7%. Originally created as a governance token for a now-defunct DAO aimed at auctioning off a copy of the US Constitution, the project became a politically themed meme coin that had no use after “things got going.”
During his speech, Trump promised to commute the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht if elected. Silk Road was a peer-to-peer darknet marketplace that used Bitcoin to facilitate the sale of drugs and other illicit substances; Ulbricht was sentenced to two life sentences without parole in 2015 for money laundering, fraud and drug crimes.
Cryptocurrency and Ulbricht Quotes
It’s not the first time Trump has considered Ulbricht’s situation; Following his 2020 election defeat, he was reportedly considering issuing a pardon to the Silk Road founder as part of a series of pardons ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021. But later he did not do this.
Trump sought to position himself as a pro-crypto candidate during the speech, promising to end Joe Biden’s “crusade to crush crypto” and prevent the creation of a US central bank digital currency (CBDC).
