Rapture #259: The Donald Does it Again
While markets have quite frankly been depressing of late, the hot trend of the day in crypto definitely brings some comic relief.
In the past few days, President Donald Trump has been pre-hyping a big announcement. Many speculated that President Trump would proclaim his running mate or some bombastic new proposed policy.
Instead, President Trump announced the official Donald Trump Digital Trading Card collection on Truth Social. He even made a promotional video for the collection, which can be found here.
Just to answer the question many of you are thinking, this is not a campaign fundraiser. The website for these NFTs explicitly states that the money used for the purchasing of these NFTs will not be utilized for Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.
The launch
While certain aspects of launch are catchy, there are some major issues that need to be addressed. Lets go into the details of the launch.
Each NFT costs 99$. If you buy 45 of them, then you get to a go to a guaranteed dinner with Trump with a bunch of other people who bought 45. Every purchase also enters you into a sweepstakes contest that has various prizes that range from "play golf with President Trump" to "zoom call with President Trump."
You can either purchase the NFTs, which are being issued on Polygon, via connecting your own wallet or purchase them utilizing an email sign up that is enabled by Torus.
Trending
Despite the jankiness of purchasing these NFTs, the drop is undoubtedly hot. I have seen close to a dozen mainstream media articles written about the launch and people throughout the Twittersphere are chipping in their two gwei.
Furthermore, the collection is now in the top 3 trending collections in the past 24 hours on OpenSea.
There have already been almost 22,000 mints and the collection has more than 5,000 holders. Not bad for just coming out today.
In terms of branding, the Trump video associated with the launch has been viewed more than 1 million times. Undoubtedly, the media stunt is doing its job of keeping Trump in the conversation.
Effects of drop
Having a former president utilize his name in a NFT drop displays that crypto is indeed gaining mainstream adoption. This drop will on-board many new users into crypto.
Additionally, this NFT drop takes media attention away from the more unsavory news relating to President Trump that has come out in the past month or so, such as the tax fraud case in NY.
Trump is continuing the trend that IreneDAO started. I do not think Trump will be the last to capitalize on the community binding features of crypto.
CORRECTION: It seems like there was just bad UX and people can indeed still access their Trump NFTs.
No rug!
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