Galaxy, Ripple CEOs lent $160M to MoonPay for TRUMP token launch
2025-02-12
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Keith Grossman, president of enterprise at MoonPay, revealed that Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, and Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, lent the platform $160 million to help meet user demand for Trump-themed memecoins. 
According to Grossman, the fiat-to-crypto on-ramp platform was overwhelmed by the demand for the Official TRUMP and Melania memecoins, which both launched the weekend ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration.
During a recent interview on the When Shift Happens podcast, the executive said the platform had 750,000 registrations during the weekend of the memecoin launch. The demand was the equivalent of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on MoonPay’s servers.
“The volumes were just gigantic. All of the liquidity that we used to sort of buy the crypto to sell the crypto, like, was locked in BlackRock accounts in a traditional finance […], and it’s Saturday of a holiday weekend during the inauguration. So, we have no access to our capital. All of the reserves that we have are dwindling really fast,” Grossman shared. 
According to Grossman, Novogratz lent MoonPay $100 million, while Garlinghouse provided an additional $60 million. MoonPay accessed its BlackRock accounts on Jan. 21 and paid back the funds, the executive said. 
Official Trump (TRUMP) surged to a market capitalization of nearly $9 billion and reached a fully diluted value of over $70 billion one day after launching — highlighting the popularity of the asset class and drawing debate over political ethics.
Trump’s memecoin draws criticism and calls for investigation
Attorneys debated the legality of the memecoin launch, with some arguing that the token offering represents a positive regulatory shift in Washington, DC and others warning of a potential constitutional violation.
Lawyer David Lesperance told Cointelegraph that the release of a memecoin by a president of the United States represents a clear violation of the Emoluments Clause of the US Constitution.
The law is designed to prevent undue foreign influence over the Executive Branch by restricting the acceptance of gifts, payments or anything of value that can be construed as a financial bribe.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren called for a probe into the token launch days after the memecoin went live, citing concerns over the potential for the token to be an avenue for bribery.
“The Trump family-controlled Trump Organization and its affiliates hold 80 percent of the TRUMP coin,” the senator’s Jan. 22 letter read.
Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer protection group, echoed Warren’s calls for an investigation into the memecoin launch in February 2025.
In a Feb. 5 letter, the group said the president of the United States is expressively prohibited from accepting gifts due to his official position and argued that the tokens benefit President Donald Trump personally.