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A meme coin called Restore the Republic (RTR) on the Solana blockchain experienced extreme price volatility on Thursday, surging to a $155 million market cap before crashing 95% following false claims of its association with former President Donald Trump.

The RTR token’s dramatic rise and fall came in the wake of social media posts by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump teasing an upcoming DeFi announcement and praising the crypto community’s embrace of their father. Eric Trump had earlier tweeted that he had “fallen in love with Crypto / DeFi,” prompting speculation about a potential Trump-backed crypto project.

The token’s price skyrocketed from $0.0005 to $0.1460 within hours before rapidly plummeting to $0.0076, according to data from GeckoTerminal. This volatility was fueled by influential figures on X promoting the token as potentially associated with the former president. At the time of writing, the token currently trades at $0.0084.

Ryan Fournier, chair of Students for Trump, initially amplified the rumor, stating, “rumor has it that the official trump coin is out…called Restore the Republic.” However, he later deleted this tweet and clarified, “I was told by sources that Don Jr. would be backing this token. That is why I said rumor. I’m not a big crypto guy and I was not in any way involved in this project.”

The bubble burst when Eric Trump explicitly denounced the token’s association with his father. “This is absolutely false,” he tweeted in response to claims of an official Trump token. Both Eric and Donald Trump Jr. issued warnings about unauthorized projects. Donald Jr. posted, “The only official project will be announced directly by us, and it will be fair for everyone. Don’t be fooled—stay tuned for the real deal.”

This incident has shed light on the volatile nature of the meme coin market and its susceptibility to misinformation. Crypto observers pointed to evidence that Kanpai Labs, the entity behind the Kanpai Pandas NFTs, had advertised the token prior to launch. Bags, the pseudonymous creator of Kanpai, claimed in a now-deleted post that the Trump family had selected the launch date before “hard rugging us.”

The RTR token’s dramatic swing shows us the importance of due diligence in the crypto space, especially concerning projects claiming high-profile associations. It also shows just how much influence social media personalities and political figures can have on crypto markets, even without direct involvement.

This is not the first Trump-themed token to face controversy. Recently, another token called DJT made headlines when Martin Shkreli claimed that he and Donald Trump’s son Barron had created it. The DJT token subsequently crashed by 90% last week when a large token holder appeared to sell en masse.

The episode highlights Donald Trump’s enduring influence among crypto enthusiasts. Analytics firm LunarCrush reports that there are currently 162 Trump or MAGA-themed crypto tokens, up from 111 just two weeks ago. This proliferation of Trump-related tokens showcases how politics, understood in the sense of personalities within the political sphere, intersects with crypto, as well as the potential for such kinds of exploitation in unregulated markets.

Despite the crash, RTR still maintains a significant rise since its launch, with approximately $130 million in trading volume, according to data from Gecko Terminal. This incident serves as a cautionary tale for investors in the crypto space, emphasizing the need for thorough research and skepticism towards unverified claims of celebrity or political endorsements.

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