Fake Eric Trump Meme Coin Crashes After $160M Pump—Another ’Trust Us’ Crypto Scam Bites Dust
Another day, another rug pull—this time with a side of political parody. A meme coin masquerading as an Eric Trump endorsement skyrocketed to a $160 million market cap before its anonymous devs pulled the exit scam. Investors left holding bags heavier than a Mar-a-Lago dinner bill.
How it played out:
• The token launched with vague promises of ’making crypto great again’—turns out greatness meant vanishing with the liquidity pool.
• Social media hype (and likely some bot armies) fueled the pump before the inevitable dump.
• On-chain sleuths spotted the classic signs: locked contracts that weren’t actually locked, dev wallets slowly draining funds.
The fallout? Another black eye for crypto’s reputation—just what we needed after the SEC’s latest ’I told you so’ press conference. But hey, at least the scammers didn’t waste money on KYC checks—that’d cut into their Lambo budget.
Eric Trump Coin Gets Rug Pulled
Rug pull scams are a growing part of the crypto ecosystem, and fake meme coins are a core component of the “sector.” Today’s Eric Trump rug pull was particularly egregious, as it was clearly telegraphed in advance.
After the meme coin spiked 6,200% in less than a day, Bubblemaps investigated the asset, warning followers not to fall for it:
“A rug in the making. ERICTRUMP is currently trending on most platforms. Avoid it,” he stated several hours before the rug pull. The warning received more than 100,000 views.
Specifically, he noted that the token was bundled to an absurdly large degree. A small number of accounts held most Eric Trump tokens, facilitating an easier exit whenever the scammer decided to pull the rug.
When President Trump launched his own meme coin, the saga that led to this scam began. TRUMP broke new ground in combining fame and political success to boost a cryptoasset’s value, and an official MELANIA token came out shortly afterward.
After this, fake coins and rug pulls began using other Trump family members’ names, including Eric.
Hackers promoted a fake BARRON coin in February, joining several other Trump-themed scams. Blockchain data reveals that the proprietor of this rug pull tried to launch three other Eric Trump coins before this one.
Those projects failed, but this coin started trending. Then, the scammer exited, and the token’s market cap fell from $160 million to $30,000 in the blink of an eye:
Even if the scammer’s first attempts failed, one multimillion-dollar success can go a very long way. It’s concerning that the ERIC TRUMP rug pull performed so well despite the blaring and well-publicized warning signs.
As long as cash grabs like this continue to succeed, they will damage the entire industry’s reputation and future.
