This New Trump Token Has Big Red Flags

There are loads of Trump tokens out there — many of them joke meme coins boasting cartoon depictions of the former president.

And now, there’s another cryptocurrency to add to this list. It’s called The Trump Token, and it’s going to be based on the Solana blockchain under the GREAT ticker.

At first glance, it seems like an interesting concept, with 50% of the funds raised during a presale being donated to political groups that support Trump’s agenda.

But when you delve deeper into the project, you quickly begin to realize that it’s riddled with problems — not to mention red flags that should alarm would-be investors.

I was shown a beta version of The Trump Token’s website, which appeared to show the 12-strong team leading the project.

Among them you have Yar the chief architect, while Kira deals with operations and compliance. Hyland serves as campaign manager, with Margaret acting as political liaison.

Curiosity led me to do a little digging into where these images came from — after all, if I’m writing about the project, it’s good to know about the backgrounds of those involved.

Alarm bells started to ring when it emerged that the images for all four of these “staff members” were AI-generated — a mere figment of the project’s imagination.

Cryptonews interviewed James Grundvig, a media ambassador for The Trump Token. He’s a freelance journalist who has previously shared unfounded COVID conspiracy theories — and has written debunked articles claiming a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece is fake.

During the video call, I asked him for details about The Trump Token team. He described “Yar” as his main point of contact — but couldn’t remember his surname. That’s unusual. Most of us would be able to remember the last name of someone we work with closely.

When asked for details about “Margaret,” the political liaison, he said he doesn’t interact with her. Fair enough. After all, it is a big team.

I then showed Grundvig the results of the AI image detector — showing there’s a 99% chance that the images of team members had been faked.

He admitted they’re avatars, and said:

“That’s their choice. They want to protect the anonymity of people until after the election, we are in a very politically hostile environment in the United States.”

The atmosphere is tense right now in the U.S. Trump has been the subject of two attempted assassinations. It’s understandable that his supporters would want to take precautions.

But this feels different. Adding fake pictures of “team members” to a token’s website is completely unnecessary if protecting their identities is the aim — if anything, it may only mislead naive investors. So I asked Grundvig: how can these investors trust The Trump Token?

“Well, they’re going to have to just believe, like Trump does, that the founders are big-time Trump supporters… a lot of crypto experience, in the finance business, and our American patriots.”

Grundvig says the owners of The Trump Token are planning to identify themselves after the election result — when you could argue the political atmosphere will be even more tense.

“They’re going to let themselves be known. They’re not hiding. They’re just doing this temporarily for their own safety and security.”

He went on to stress that “Margaret” and other team members are real people. Would he tell me their identities off the record so I could verify they exist? No.

I put it to Grundvig that all of this looks exceptionally dodgy — and it’s a big ask for investors to trust a brand-new project without knowing anything about who’s involved.

“It might seem dodgy but in the world of cryptocurrency, it’s not dodgy. I mean, do we know the owner of Bitfinex or Tether? Do you really know who they are?”

All of this brings us a bigger problem with The Trump Token: despite the fact it’s come literally out of nowhere, this is a project comparing itself with the likes of Tether and Bitcoin — cryptocurrencies that have had years to establish trust.

Its whitepaper is a veritable word salad reminiscent of the ICO era, and wheels out the greatest hits by promising decentralized governance, everyday purchases and DeFi integration.

Out of its max supply of 21 million tokens, 10 million are being sold in the presale at $10 a pop. In theory, that means up to $50 million could be donated to supporting Trump’s campaign.

These SuperPAC contributions are the project’s main selling point — but even that has glaring problems. Why? Because given the election’s barely a month away, Trump’s campaign will likely be over before these funds are disbursed.

I asked Grundvig whether The Trump Token comes too late in the election cycle. He said:

“Are we a little late? I’m not going to worry about that at this moment — we’ve got what we have and we’re running to the races.”

He argued that the vast donations planned to SuperPACs wouldn’t affect the value of The Trump Token either, with airdrops and rewards planned for early adopters.

According to the project’s website, one of these perks is an NFT that would be issued to token holders when Trump wins the election. But with polls showing that the race against Kamala Harris remains on a knife edge, what would happen if he loses — and would the token end up fading into obscurity? Grundvig said:

“We’re very confident that’s not going to happen. How would that affect it long-term? Trump will not go away, as you’ve seen the last three-and-a-half years he’s not going away. It will still be viable, because his vision will continue to pound the American political system. He’s an outsider. He’s a maverick.”

Given how Americans can donate crypto directly to Trump’s campaign, this is a token that almost feels like an unnecessary middleman — albeit one that loftily describes itself as “America’s cryptocurrency” and a “political movement.”

Grundvig rightly pointed out in the interview that donations to SuperPACs could be verified on the blockchain, meaning investors would be able to see where their funds end up going.

But for me, that isn’t enough to get over the glaring issues facing this project. Not knowing who the founders are. The AI-generated team members. The bad timing. The exaggerated comparisons with Bitcoin.

So: what’s Grundvig’s message to those who might come across The Trump Token… and find the project, well, a little… weird?

“I think people need to get involved. I think a lot of Americans do not know enough about cryptocurrency. But you know, Trump has a massive base of anywhere from 80 to 100 million people that support him, and support his movement. And so I think it’s an opportunity for them to learn.”

My worry is what exactly newbie investors would learn — and whether they would end up wishing they hadn’t.

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