Keith Grossman, President of the cryptocurrency exchange MoonPay, has revealed that the digital asset services firm Galaxy Digital and the blockchain infrastructure provider Ripple Labs helped his company handle the weekend boom that came with the launch of the Official Trump (TRUMP) meme coin.
Speaking at the When Shift Happens podcast, Grossman explained that Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Mike Novogratz and Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse collectively gave MoonPay loans worth $160 million during the weekend that U.S. President Donald Trump launched TRUMP.
What Happened?
Trump released his meme coin on the Solana network three days before his inauguration as the new president of the United States. On Friday, January 17, TRUMP went live, and the crypto community went berserk. Capital was flooding into the token, and its market cap grew by billions within hours.
According to Grossman, the TRUMP team directed the token to Moonshot, a self-custodial wallet that uses MoonPay to convert fiat to crypto. Because the exchange has exclusive rails to the wallet, there was an explosive surge in trading volume on the platform by the morning of January 18.
Unfortunately for MoonPay, the liquidity needed to ensure TRUMP transactions were successful was locked up in the leading asset management firm BlackRock in a manner similar to traditional finance (TradFi) entities. So, MoonPay’s reserves were declining speedily, while the team had no access to the exchange’s capital because it was a weekend. Worse still, they could not access the capital by Monday, January 20, because it was deemed a public holiday due to Trump’s inauguration.
In the heat of the moment, Grossman reached out to Galaxy’s Novogratz, explaining that Moonpay needed at least $100 million in USD Coin (USDC) to sustain liquidity for the TRUMP boom. After reaching out to BlackRock’s executives to confirm that MoonPay had enough capital like Grossman claimed, Novogratz provided the funds needed about an hour before midnight on January 18.
Moonpay Gains 750K New Users
Interestingly, Galaxy Digital’s executives asked MoonPay co-founder and CEO Ivan Soto-Wright to pledge his entire net worth for the loan, and he did so without hesitation. Soto-Wright also liquidated his personal bitcoins (BTC) to keep MoonPay’s liquidity running until the loan was secured.
By the morning of January 19, Moonpay needed another $60 million because the TRUMP mania had gotten even crazier. Coupled with the surge in TRUMP trading volume, U.S. First Lady Melania Trump launched her meme coin, Official Melania Meme (MELANIA), which was also booming. Soto-Wright contacted Garlinghouse, and the Ripple CEO agreed to wire the money through Galaxy Digital.
Grossman further disclosed that MoonPay repaid the loans before the evening of January 21 and that the company gained 750,000 new users during the TRUMP and MELANIA boom.
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