Crypto scammers pull in $155 million on latest Trump coin rumors

A cryptocurrency called Restore the Republic (RTR) has seen a dramatic rise and fall despite trading for less than a day amid confusion over its origins. When the token appeared on the Solana blockchain on Thursday, it was immediately associated with Eric Trump, the son of former president Donald Trump, who wrote on X earlier in the week, “I fell in love with crypto/DeFi. Stay tuned for a big announcement.”

Rumors have begun circulating online that RTR could be the “announcement.” Students for Trump President Ryan Fournier said, “Rumor has it that the official Trump coin is out… Restore the Republic.” As the rumors grew, crypto and MAGA enthusiasts poured more than $155 million into the currency in the first six hours after it became available, causing its value to increase by more than 120%, according to CoinGecko data.

However, just an hour after reaching $0.022, the price quickly dropped by over 80%. The rapid unraveling was triggered by a tweet from Eric Trump, who warned users about “fake tokens” and added that no official Trump project had been announced.

In an interview shared on X, his brother Donald Trump Jr. addressed the confusion: “I love memecoins and I love that culture. I love what those guys did… But I need to make sure people understand that you can’t confuse one thing with the other.” He warned speculators not to associate any tokens with the family “unless you hear it directly from us.”

As the token began to unravel, Fournier wrote that he had been informed by “sources” that Trump’s son would support the token. “That’s why I said rumor. I’m not a big crypto guy and I had no involvement in this project whatsoever,” he added, arguing his case.

Some members of the crypto community have highlighted that Kanpai Labs, the creator of the Kanpai Pandas non-fungible token (NFT), promoted the token ahead of its launch. The creator of Kanpai, known by the nickname “Bags,” claims that the Trump family is behind the coin, even choosing the launch date, then “came down on us” and promptly deleted the post.

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RTR is not the first Trump-themed memecoin to allegedly have no ties to the former president. Super Trump (STRUMP) has a market cap of over $14 million and was up 20% when RTR started pumping. Similarly, the MAGA (TRUMP) token has a market cap of over $140 million and jumped 10% on Thursday. Historically, coins have been pumped during bullish moments of Trump’s election prediction.

This story was first published on Fortune.com