Trump's NFT collection collapses 69% in price

It may have been easy to miss, but former President of the United States Donald J. Trump pulled one of the greatest 180's in the history of crypto.

He went from calling crypto a "scam" to launching his very own non-fungible token (NFT) collection in no time. Amazing!

But, it appears not even Trump himself is immune to the pricing pressures in this crypto winter, as his digital collectible "trading cards" have collapsed 69% over the last 10 days of trading.

The NFTs, which unlocked entries into a series of sweepstakes to meet Mr. Trump or golf at one of his properties, had originally sold for $99. After fees, a fair price comparison in ether would come to around 0.1 ETH. After spiking to .58 ETH 10 days ago, the floor price for Trump NFTs now sits around .17 ETH ($205) on NFT trading platform OpenSea.

That means that if you were able to buy a Trump NFT at the jump, you'd still be in the green. Of course, that's usually not how NFT drops tend to go. Many times, insiders will scoop up NFTs and once they are sold out they will try to re-sell them at artificially inflated prices. With a collection as large as the 45,000 NFTs in the Trump collection, that might be tough to completely pull off.

According to OpenSea stats, the 45,000 NFTs are owned by just over 15,000 wallets. That means just 34% of "owners" are unique. Which might explain the precipitous drop in price if just a few concentrated sellers decided prices aren't likely to run much higher and decided to cut bait by dumping them.

What has been interesting, however, is the bi-partisan backlash Trump has received for deciding to drop his own NFT collection. Republicans and Democrats alike seem confused, perplexed, and even angry. But if you do the math, either the company behind the drop or Trump was able to collect about $4.45 million by selling out the collection. Additionally, the company receives a 10% cut on each trade. Considering the collection has done 7,653 ETH in volume on OpenSea, that's nearly an additional $1 million in revenue right there.

You still might think NFTs are a joke — and many projects still are — but that's about $5.5 million made in roughly two-weeks — even excluding potential royalties from other secondary trading sites like MagicEden.

As someone who has launched his own digital collectible with real upside, it's been a fascinating experiment for me to watch. I am not surprised to see Trump's NFTs enjoy a similar rise and fall that have plagued other projects this year in a tough market. But, I still firmly believe attaching real value to NFTs will carry them into a new evolution. (Technology is rarely ever used to its full potential when it first debuts.)

For example, the NFTs from my new Web3 media company will serve as tickets into co-owning our first show with us. And, our NFTs are owned by nearly 6,000 holders (94% unique owners.) The show, Coinage, has already racked up more than a half million views on YouTube and could secure sponsorships or a television deal in Season 2. Net proceeds stemming from either would be paid back to NFT holders who become active community members in our experiment.

Is that real value? I think so! Owning a community-owned show sounds pretty neat! Not to mention the NFT also unlocks the ability to choose what our show covers, and the ability to watch our episodes first. And all for roughly the same price of buying a cartoon of ... Trump in a superhero costume.

For one more week, we're still offering our NFTs at the discounted community price of just 0.1 ETH before prices rise and they are made available to the public. As a loyal subscriber to this newsletter, I'd be happy to add you to our list to co-own Coinage with me. Just reply with your interest or email me directly at [email protected].