Exchanges listed Trump’s memecoin within days, bypassing their usual review timelines

Coinbase normally takes weeks or even months to list a new crypto token. But when President Donald Trump released his memecoin $TRUMP three days before his inauguration in January, the exchange decided within 24 hours.

By January 18, Coinbase had added it to its listings roadmap, and by January 21, it was trading. That pace shocked even longtime market watchers. And they weren’t alone.

According to Reuters, eight of the world’s ten biggest crypto exchanges listed $TRUMP within 48 hours of its launch. The only outlier, Upbit, joined in on February 13. On average, those same ten platforms took 129 days to list other popular meme coins like Pepe, Bonk, Fartcoin, and dogwifhat. For Trump’s coin, they barely blinked.

Coin skyrocketed, then tanked

The token hit $75.35 on April 19, just two days after launch. By early April, it was already scraping the $7 mark. On Thursday, it sat around $9.55. Carl Runefelt, a Dubai-based crypto influencer who runs a YouTube channel called the Moon Show, told Reuters he dumped $300,000 into the coin at prices between $50 and $60. “It’s probably one of my worst trades, unfortunately,” he said. 

Each of the ten exchanges—Binance, Coinbase, OKX, Bitget, MEXC, Bybit, Crypto.com, Gate.io, HTX, and Upbit—listed $TRUMP. Bitget’s CEO, Gracy Chen, told Reuters that the hype around the token made it impossible to ignore. 

“The crypto space was buzzing with the hype and, as any other token with a growing craze, it was imperative to add TRUMP,” she said. Gracy also said that because Trump personally promoted it, compliance concerns were off the table: “He’s the president of the United States.” 

Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, said the listing process followed normal procedures. “Given the information that was shared publicly, we were confident that users could engage with the token positively and safely,” Paul said. The token was still labeled as “experimental” on the site, signaling it could come with wild price swings.

Seoyoung Kim, a finance professor at Santa Clara University, told Reuters that exchanges often weigh how well-known the coin’s creator is, and how much they engage online. $TRUMP, she said, scored high.

But she warned that fast listings don’t always mean safe listings. She said exchanges should also look at how long a coin has kept its market cap steady before listing and what its daily volume looks like. For $TRUMP, there wasn’t enough time to gather that kind of data.

High profits for a few, big losses for most

The coin’s market cap shot up to $15 billion on January 19. Today, it’s closer to $1.9 billion. Still, it ranks among the biggest meme coins released in the last three years. The ten exchanges made over $172 million from trading fees, based on estimates from CoinDesk Data. But retail investors didn’t see much of that.

Trading data reviewed by Bubblemaps showed that 45 wallets made about $1.2 billion in profits. Meanwhile, 712,777 wallets together lost $4.3 billion. Another 500,000 wallets saw modest gains, averaging $5,656. The clear winners were those who got in early and exited fast.

Even worse, 80% of the coin was held by Trump’s family and business partners. That kind of centralization usually raises red flags. It gives insiders the power to unload large volumes of tokens, crashing the price and trapping regular buyers. The coin’s supply is set to unlock slowly over three years, but that didn’t stop trading platforms from moving fast.

Tracy Jin, COO at MEXC, told Reuters that $TRUMP didn’t meet their standards for a full listing. Still, they went ahead because demand was just too strong. In a written statement, MEXC said the token “met our listing standards early” and had “clear market momentum.” Gracy from Bitget said they were concerned about the 80% figure too: “Even though there’s a little bit of a lock-up period, it is in my opinion very risky.”

Bitget is based in the Seychelles and doesn’t serve U.S. customers. “Globally, people are generally aware of the risks associated with trading meme coins,” Gracy said.

Regulators watched, but didn’t act

One day before the token launched, the New York State Department of Financial Services warned against meme coins. They said such tokens were often handled by unlicensed platforms and controlled by a few people, making them ripe for pump-and-dump schemes.

Coinbase, which is regulated in New York, blocked residents of the state from trading $TRUMP, but allowed access to other U.S. users. Listing it in New York would have required deeper risk checks and governance reviews.

The speed of the listings raised questions about conflicts of interest. But a White House press official told Reuters that Trump’s assets were in a family trust. “There are no conflicts of interest because the president isn’t managing the assets,” the official said. “Any insinuation that there is a conflict of interest is irresponsible.”

Critics say the president’s business activity in the same sector his government regulates is troubling. Corey Frayer, former senior advisor at the SEC and now director of the Consumer Federation of America, told Reuters, “You don’t say no to hosting the president’s new meme coin.” He said Trump now oversees the very agencies that regulate these platforms.

KEY Difference Wire helps crypto brands break through and dominate headlines fast