The Man Who Made $40 Million from Trump Coin Becomes the Center of Attention Again

$TRUMP, the token from the U.S. president, has left many myths of sudden wealth in the cryptocurrency world. Many people have rejoiced over it, while others lament missing another life-changing opportunity. However, more than a year has passed, the stock market has risen, and the cryptocurrency market has faded, with speculation never ceasing. The various stories about Trump Coin have gradually become less relevant.

Recently, someone in the cryptocurrency world has once again become the center of attention due to Trump Coin, @kimchi1x. It is said that he made $40 million from Trump Coin.

Unlike many well-known meme coin players who are famous for making big money, kimchi's X account has nearly 80,000 followers, but he has hardly posted anything related to meme coin trading on X; in fact, he has never done so.

His X account is filled with content showcasing wealth, including food, luxury cars, and expensive watches. Since February of last year, his X account has been all about such tweets, with no words, just a few photos or a video every few months documenting his life after becoming wealthy.

So, it is a bit strange that he has suddenly become popular now, considering he has been flaunting for over a year, yet this time there are suddenly countless tweets about him making $40 million from Trump Coin.

This latest tweet reached 25.6 million views, while previously it was around 500,000.

There are many doubts on X about whether kimchi really made so much money from Trump Coin. Many people have become wealthy through Trump Coin, but those who gain fame usually have on-chain records to verify, or they were already well-known meme coin players in the community, so there are no doubts.

However, kimchi's alleged $40 million profit does not have any on-chain data to verify it. @sukie234 pointed out that many of kimchi's wealth flaunting pictures are AI-generated:

Others mentioned that many of the luxury items kimchi flaunts are borrowed from others:

Another well-known meme coin player, Orangie, interviewed kimchi face-to-face before Trump launched the coin. From that interview, we learned that kimchi only started trading meme coins in early April 2024, but he picked it up quickly. By November 2024, he had achieved at least six-figure earnings in a single month.

In the interview, we could see his trading environment, with a Solana address showing a balance of $150,000 on his computer screen. He stated that he spends 15 hours a day scanning the chain for trades.

He also mentioned some personal topics, such as studying business at the University of Southern California, primarily because his parents wanted him to. In the video, Orangie also shared real-time updates about his meeting with kimchi with other members of their small group via Discord video chat, where members are typically recognized and reputable players in the community.

In summary, I tend to believe that kimchi's claim of making $40 million from Trump Coin is real, at least I won't doubt it. After all, Trump Coin has indeed created many wealth myths, with enough liquidity for these individuals to exit with profits.

Life is predestined. Orangie interviewed kimchi on January 14, 2025, and kimchi stated in the interview that he would stop once he made eight figures in dollars. A few days later, Trump Coin emerged, and kimchi achieved his goal, starting to enjoy life after becoming wealthy.

In kimchi's Porsche 911, a rather poignant conversation occurred. Orangie asked kimchi, "Don't you believe in holding long-term?"

Kimchi's response was that he believes in it, but he has developed PTSD regarding long-term holding. Orangie thought it was because kimchi was deeply trapped by choosing to hold long-term in 2021, but kimchi said it was because he took large positions at high prices in $POPCAT and some other large-cap meme coins, suffering significant losses, which led him to no longer believe in holding long-term and instead choose to be a paper hand.

After starting to trade meme coins in April 2024, kimchi initially thought that the meme coin market might end with the end of that summer. At that time, he could not foresee an opportunity that would completely change his life. Later, he felt that perhaps meme coins might never reach a "grand finale."

Kimchi is lucky. The innovation of pump.fun, which greatly simplifies the process of launching and trading coins at a very low cost, has profoundly changed the way meme coins are played. Before that, everyone was accustomed to a slow pace and longer cycles of community building. The opportunities we missed were largely due to being trapped in the inertia of meme coin thinking, not realizing that attention could be monetized in such a rapid manner, and so crazily.

If you pay enough attention to the shares of meme coin players on X, you will find many young people like kimchi. When they discover that by sitting in front of the computer at high intensity every day without rest, they can capture the latest on-chain movements faster than others and click the mouse, they can reap wealth they never dared to imagine, they seize what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to earn a substantial fortune.

Kimchi got into meme coins because a friend he met in Fortnite shared with him that he could earn a decent income by trading meme coins. Looking back, the meme coin craze of 2024-2025 may be the most successful "Mass Adoption" in the cryptocurrency market after NFTs.

Trump took away a massive amount of liquidity from the cryptocurrency world through his Trump Coin. Those who became wealthy because of Trump, who had no faith in cryptocurrency before encountering meme coins, or those who lost faith in cryptocurrency due to the fast-paced meme coins, will no longer let the wealth they gained circulate in this market.

Although they are young, they have also been tempered by the market and know its cruelty. They understand what kind of game they are playing.

So, will meme coins ever regain their former glory?

No. Regardless of whether we are still young, we all want to "reverse our fate."

The choices of young people are no longer limited to stock trading. They will bet in the recently concluded World Cup, trade sneakers, hype streetwear, speculate on Pokémon cards, and trade game skins... as long as they can make money, any market, regardless of how niche, has a vitality far stronger than we imagine.

There are countless young people like kimchi, starting speculation in some market with the dream of earning $1,000 a day. Most may fall in the sea of blood and knives, but some will stand at the peak.

Perhaps meme coins driven purely by attention will find it hard to reach their peak again. Recently, many players have lamented that the globally popular meme character Jimothy, sent by the White House's X account, has barely broken the $50 million market cap. This may indicate that this attention-driven gameplay has fallen into narrative fatigue, and a topic or character that goes viral on TikTok or other social media is unlikely to reach the heights of hundreds of millions or even billions in market cap.

But this does not mean the story of meme coins has come to an end. The opportunity to change your life may be on the way.