Trump’s NFT collection: a scam or a golden ticket?

The cost of each token was $99, so the total income amounted to $4.45 million. Notably, the collection was sold out within an hour, and about 30,000 wallets took part in the activity. 

NFT holders have the opportunity to compete for a range of perks associated with their idol. Potential prizes include an autograph session, a dinner, a golf game with Trump, or a Zoom call with the former US president.

Scam or a golden ticket?

The crypto community immediately suspected the project of fraud. The creators are accused of using a deepfake and the personality of Donald Trump to make profits from selling a hype collection. In other words – a common crypto scam.

We decided to investigate this situation to understand whether this collection is the real brainchild of the 45th President of the United States, or whether we are dealing with another scammer. 

Polygon instead of Ethereum

The first thing that catches your eye is that NFTs are created on the Polygon blockchain. Most often, big collections are minted and sold on Ethereum. Polygon is mostly used to lower the price threshold because network fees are much lower on this blockchain ($0.05 instead of $5-$15 per transaction). Thus, more people can afford to participate. 

Polygon was chosen specifically to attract more people. High Ethereum fees often repel buyers. Clever marketing.

Low animation quality

All the tokens are images of Trump’s face with some kind of background. This background is lackluster, to put it mildly. Here we have a picture of a house, a carpet, a wad of cash, and boxing gloves. In terms of creativity and originality, these NFTs are terrible. Given the popularity of Trump, especially on Twitter, it is hard to believe that he created his collection so carelessly. 

Examples of NFTs from Trump’s collection (OpenSea)

Suspicious wallet activity

As we mentioned, 45,000 tokens were bought by approximately 30,000 addresses. That is, on average, 1 wallet received more than 1 NFT. Roughly 200 wallets minted over 45 NFT, spending over $4,000.

Such manipulations are often carried out by ordinary scam projects. Creators are buying a lot of tokens on their own to artificially create demand, reducing the supply and generating a potential FOMO. Later these NFTs are sold on the secondary market while the topic is still hot and until the hype decreases. 

The collection was launched on Polygon to expand the audience, but it turned out that the number of participants decreased. A paradox.

Trump is a crypto hater

Some users recalled that Donald Trump clearly expressed his opinion on cryptocurrencies. In 2019, he published a tweet in which he criticized Bitcoin and everything related to the world’s oldest cryptocurrency. 

If the ex-president had refuted the then statement with a new tweet, everything would be clear. But so far, Trump has not commented on this collection.

Trump’s opinion on Bitcoin (July 2019 tweet)

A shady scheme of a shady company

The information about the project explicitly states that Trump has nothing to do with the collection. On their website, the creators wrote:

NFTs are not owned, operated, or controlled by Donald Trump. We use Donald J. Trump's name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Digital LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.

By the way, the company is registered at the address which lists an empty piece of land with an old 5*5-meter house (1143 East Union St, Newark, NY 14513). It is fair to mention that a lot of businesses use a location that is not related to a company as a legal address. 

The icing on the cake is the statement from collecttrumpcards.com that it is not necessary to buy NFTs to compete for prizes. An alternative option is to mail an envelope to Official Donald Trump NFT Collection Sweepstakes, where you just need to enter personal data. In addition, it is mentioned on a website that buying an NFT does not increase the chance of winning the sweepstakes.

Donald Trump does not take part in this collection

Nothing to complain about

It will be possible to find out whether Donald Trump launched this collection only when the prizes will be drawn. This will happen in February 2023. In other words, for another 3 months, tens of thousands of NFTs will be bought and sold thousands of times. By the way, the current price of NFTs is higher than the mint price. 

For each resale, the authors of the collection receive a royalty of 10%. The current trading volume of this collection on OpenSea is 1,800 ETH, which is equivalent to $2.1 million daily. 10% of this amount is $210,000. Keep in mind that this is daily profit, and only 7% of NFTs are listed.

Trump Digital Trading Cards collection statistics

If we add all the tokens that are going to be listed plus constantly growing volumes, as well as the $4.45 million that was earned during the mint, we will get a good business plan with a potential return of $20-30 million for a couple of months. 

And even if Trump has nothing to do with this collection, it will not be hard for him to play a round of golf or have dinner with a lottery winner. After all, a dinner for $10 million… What could be better? 

Even people who criticize the ex-president for his “scam” activities and for promoting Ponzi schemes, still admit that it was an excellent marketing ploy that raised the popularity of such a striking person as Donald Trump. And this clearly plays into his hands.