When a meme coin loses 87% of its value, you've got two options: accept defeat or try something creative. Promoters of the Trump meme coin (TRUMP) are betting on the latter, bundling the struggling token into a mobile game that they hope can reverse months of relentless decline.
Building Empires, One Memecoin at a Time
The upcoming mobile game "Trump Billionaires Club" features a trailer with a Trump-like voice encouraging players to build empires and compete for prizes. Set in a 3D version of New York, the game lets users spend Trump memecoins to tackle business challenges and climb a leaderboard. It's the kind of gamification play that sounds either brilliant or desperate, depending on where you sit.
The timing certainly suggests urgency. The token peaked at an $8.8 billion market cap around Trump's 2025 inauguration, riding a wave of speculation and hype. Today it sits below $1.2 billion, according to CoinGecko. That's roughly $7.6 billion in evaporated value, which is a polite way of saying things have gone sideways.
Entrepreneur Bill Zanker is leading the promotional charge, planning to release the game on Apple's App Store and online by late December. His company, Freedom 45 Games LLC, is developing the title and will distribute more than $1 million worth of the token as prizes. The firm operates under a licensing agreement to use Trump's name, according to Bloomberg.
Previous Promotional Efforts Haven't Exactly Stuck
This isn't Zanker's first attempt to revive the token's fortunes. Back in May, he organized a private dinner for top token holders that Trump attended. The event created a brief price spike before the token resumed its downward trajectory. It's a familiar pattern in crypto: hype generates momentum, momentum fades, repeat.
Other promotional schemes included a Trump-branded digital wallet that never materialized and a proposed digital-asset treasury vehicle that aimed to raise up to $1 billion in capital. Neither gained traction. Meanwhile, trading volume has continued to shrink, reducing liquidity even as entities connected to Trump reportedly collected fees from on-chain activity.
The Broader Trump Digital Asset Ecosystem Is Struggling
The Trump meme coin isn't suffering alone. American Bitcoin Corp. (ABTC), co-founded by Eric Trump, has dropped 78% since its September listing on the NASDAQ. The WLFI token (WLFI) from World Liberty Financial, co-founded by Trump and his sons, is down 36%. A separate memecoin linked to Melania Trump is down 98% from its peak.
It's starting to look like a pattern: Trump-branded digital assets launch with fanfare, attract speculative interest, then bleed value as the novelty wears off and fundamentals fail to materialize.
Zanker and Trump Go Way Back
Zanker and Trump co-authored a book in 2007 and have collaborated on various commercial ventures over the years, including a crowdfunding site and multiple NFT collections featuring superhero versions of the former president. Zanker-affiliated entities have also developed Trump-branded consumer goods ranging from shoes and watches to fragrances. The relationship is long-standing and commercially diverse, which makes this latest crypto gambit fit a familiar playbook.
Interestingly, other meme assets are attempting their own recovery campaigns through transparency and community engagement. Slerf, a Solana (SOL)-based token, recently completed refunding $10 million in lost presale funds as part of a community-driven reset. It's a different approach than the Trump coin's game-driven strategy, but it signals a broader trend of struggling projects trying narrative resets to regain investor trust.
What the Charts Are Saying
From a technical perspective, TRUMP is compressing inside a symmetrical structure that's been forming since October. The token is holding just above rising support near $5.70, a level that's acted as the base for several weeks. If that support breaks, the next logical stop is around $5.20.
The 20-day exponential moving average sits near $6.08, the 50-day EMA near $6.56, and the 100-day EMA near $7.22. A close above the 20 EMA would suggest buyers are attempting a short-term shift, but the more meaningful confirmation level is the 50 EMA. Breaking through $6.56 would open a path toward $7 and potentially the broader supply zone between $7.80 and $8.
In other words, the token needs to show it can hold current levels and then push past multiple resistance points before anyone should take a potential recovery seriously. Right now, it's sitting at a crossroads, and the mobile game launch might be the catalyst that decides which direction it goes next.