The $TRUMP, $MELANIA, and $FJB Coins Show Us Why Cryptocurrency is "Bullshit"

By: Donald V. Watkins

February 15, 2026

An Editorial Opinion

The story of three well-known digital coins shows us why cryptocurrency is bullshit.

The official Donald J. Trump crypto coin ($TRUMP) launched on January 17, 2025, during the hype surrounding the presidential inauguration three days later.  The official Melania Trump crypto coin ($MELANIA) launched two days later on January 19, 2025.

The $FJB crypto coin was launched in October 2021 by Grant Tragni. By December 2021, Trump pals Steve Bannon and Boris Epshteyn took strategic ownership positions in the project. A more recent version of the FJB token, called $LET'S GO BRANDON, was launched in early 2024 on the Solana platform.

$TRUMP reached an all-time high of $73.43 on January 19, 2025. The surge was driven by speculative buying just before Trump was sworn into office.

$MELANIA peaked at $13.73 on January 20, 2025. This represented a massive initial surge before the price collapsed by over 90% within months.

FJB reached its all-time high of $0.01135 on June 9, 2024. Other older variants of the $LET'S GO BRANDON theme (like $LETSGO) saw much lower peaks, such as $0.00000035. 

As of February 12, 2026, the value of these crypto coins was:

• $TRUMP: $3.42

• $MELANIA: $0.124

• FJB ($LET's GO BRANDON): $0

All of Three Crypto Ventures are Mired in Class Action Litigation.

A federal class-action lawsuit was filed against Pump.fun (the platform used to launch $TRUMP), Solana Labs, and the Solana Foundation. The suit claims these entities created an "insider-rigged" system that allowed privileged users to front-run the launches of major meme coins. It specifically named $TRUMP and $MELANIA as examples of coins where retail investors were allegedly disadvantaged by market manipulation.

A separate class-action lawsuit filed in October 2025 directly targets the architects of the $MELANIA coin. It accuses them of using "weaponized fame" to lure investors before extracting millions in liquidity. In short, the plaintiffs are claiming that $MELANIA was a “pump-and-dump scheme.

On February 12, 2026, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Bannon, Epshteyn, and others alleging they defrauded thousands of investors by selling the $FJB (later $Patriot Pay) coin as an "unregistered and highly speculative asset" while concealing its centralized risks.

Spotting "Bullshit" in the Crypto Markets

No cryptocurrency is classified in the banking world as a Tier 1 asset (e.g., physical gold or silver bars, or highly-valued publicly traded stock, etc.). There is no hard liquid assets backing cryptocurrency whatsoever.  It's value is derived solely from hype on social media platforms.

From a structural valuation standpoint, cryptocurrency has the same dollar value as the fake money in the “Monopoly” board game. It just comes with more bells, whistles, and fanfare.

The people who push this “bullshit” on social media platforms are usually paid influencers, endorsers, market manipulators, speculators, and/or crypto company insiders.

The lead person pushing crypto inside the federal government is Donald Trump, who also led six major companiess into bankruptcy and another 21 into total failure. He is also trying to breathe life into $TRUMP and $MELANIA. For all practical purposes, Steve Bannon's crypto coin has flatlined.

Since Bitcoin's creation in 2009, the total number of collapsed crypto ventures/projects is in the millions. Reliable estimates put the number of failed coins/projects at 13-14 million since 2021 alone, plus tens of thousands earlier. The vast majority of these failed crypto coins/projects were low-effort or speculative coins that launched and died quickly, especially in the 2024–2025 boom-and-bust cycle.

The cryptocurrency space remains highly experimental and very risky. It is only suitable for those who can afford to lose their total investment in the venture.

Generally, the people who get rich in cryptocurrency schemes are the insiders who launch them and then get out of the currencies before they crash.