Cathie Wood won’t invest in Trump coin, will stick to the ‘big three’
2025-01-23
Category: None

Cathie Wood, CEO and chief investment officer of ARK Invest, said US President Donald Trump is ushering in the next phase of the crypto revolution.
In a Jan. 22 interview with Bloomberg, Wood discussed Trump’s Official Trump (TRUMP) token, launched just before his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States: 
She compared the current memecoin wave to the 2017 initial coin offering (ICO) movement.
“I think it is true that the ICO movement in 2017 really brought this new technology, or at least curiosity about this new technology, to a whole new group of people. And while, you know, some in the traditional crypto world considered it — I think he used the word cringe or something like that — it really did open a lot of eyes.”
Last week, the TRUMP memecoin surged by 11,000% within hours of its launch, driving memecoin trading volumes up by 30% over the past seven days to reach $17.98 billion.
When asked if she would buy Trump Coin, Wood declined.
“We’ve pretty much stayed away from the memecoins. We’re very focused on the big three,” referring to Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL). 
Turning to the larger crypto ecosystem, Wood expressed optimism about the future of decentralized finance. 
“We think that the decentralized financial services movement, some people call it DeFi or internet financial services, is going to be big. That’s very Ethereum and Solana-based,” she added.
In December 2024, Wood reiterated her prediction that BTC could surpass $1 million by 2030. 
Whales dominate Trump coin
TRUMP token and the Official Melania Meme (MELANIA) token are controlled by 40 crypto whales, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. 
These whales hold $10 million or more in either token, accounting for 94% of the combined token supply, the firm said in a Jan. 22 X post.
Wallets with $1 million to $10 million make up 2.1% of total holders, while those holding $100,000 to $1 million account for 1.7%. Around 2.2% of the token owners hold less than $100,000 worth, highlighting the dominance of high-value holders in these tokens.
DexScreener data shows that 790,000 wallets hold TRUMP, while 343,000 hold MELANIA. Despite this concentration among whales, Chainalysis noted that the tokens brought a wave of new users to crypto, with nearly half of the buyers creating wallets on the same day they purchased the tokens.