- Donald Trump silences critics as NFT collection sells out in 12 hours, raising $4.45 million.
- The NFT collection “was much like the baseball card, but hopefully more exciting,” – Trump.
- The company behind the NFTs has stipulated that the money raised by the former president won’t be funneled to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Donald Trump teased a “major announcement” that appeared on his Truth Social account, the platform he took to after being banned from Twitter last year. Last week, some supporters of Trump speculated that he would announce his 2024 running mate or other essential details about the campaign, but to their disappointment, the news turned out to be “a Trump-themed NFT collection.”
“My official Donald Trump Digital Trading Card collection is here!” he posted Thursday. The former president never used the abbreviation “NFT” in the post, but that’s what the digital trading cards are presumed to be.
According to Benzinga, over 45,000 cards were sold out in about 12 hours, at $99 each, resulting in $4.45 million raised with nearly 14,000 people purchasing one or more of the online tokens, according to Opensea data which tracks such offerings.
However, the floor price of Trump’s collection swung up and down over its first weekend. The digital trading card collection peaked at 0.839 ETH late Saturday afternoon and has since gone back to 0.295 ETH, as per Opensea data. The total volume hit 5,824 ETH as of Sunday afternoon, with 21,479 sales.
However, the announcement drew much criticism and mockery from Republicans and some of his supporters. Steve Bannon, a right-wing media commentator and former chief strategist for Mr. Trump, stated, “I can’t do this anymore,” during his podcast about the sale. Anyone involved in the project” ought to be fired today,” he added.
Other NFT traders always took advantage of an excellent chance to speculate, leading to secondary solid market performance for the collection. Dan Murphy tweeted saying:
“The Trump infomercial is beyond parody. I know you will think this is a deep fake parody, but it isn’t. I just watched it on his website.”
Altcoin Daily also shared Trump’s previous remarks via Twitter, saying:
“Donald Trump’s in 2021: crypto is dangerous. It can be an explosion like we have never seen before.” In 2022: I’m doing my first NFT collection.”
The former president frequently licensed his name before he entered the White House; last month, he launched his third bid for the White House. The billionaire posted a promotional clip for the cards on his social media.
The clip featured an animated version of Trump in front of the Trump Tower in New York, who rips open his shirt to reveal a superhero costume with the letter T as lasers shoot from his eyes.
“The Digital Trading Cards are not political,” NFT website
Later on his Truth Social platform, Trump added that the NFT tokens were “very much like the baseball card, but hopefully much more exciting.” However, the unique assets can be bought and sold like any other property but have no tangible form.
NFT INT, the company behind the collection, stated on its website that the money raised won’t be channeled into Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. “These Digital Trading cards are not political and have nothing to do with political campaigns. NFT INT LLC is not owned, managed, or controlled by Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, CIC Digital LLC, or any of their affiliates,” the site noted.
However, advocates have noted that NFTs are the digital solution to collectibles, and critics have warned about the risks in the markets, speculating about the crypto ecosystem. A report for the U.S. Congress early this year showed that NFT sales have been used to collect credit card and other financial data and have been subject to other scams.
