Donald Trump’s marketing and merchandising prowess reached nosebleed heights with the creation of his own digital meme coin, $Trump — a product best described as what you would get if you crossed meme shares with cryptocurrency and added Trump’s DNA.

The creation of the marketable coin could certainly fall under the category of a get-rich scheme, but mainly for Trump.

Meme coins have historically been vessels for “pump and dump” speculative buying, and the polar opposite to both conservative or ethical investing.

Donald Trump owns most of his meme coins. Credit: AP

But Trump’s brand of leadership has been anything but conventional, so the ethics of merchandising his winning the US presidency for profit won’t be as eyebrow-raising as it should be.

In the pre-Tump era, it would be unthinkable for a US President to post a message advertising: “My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING! Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW.”

This virtual token, which launched on Friday night US time, has a........

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