Trump NFT prices fall, then soar, as SNL spits them
Despite widespread derision of a “big announcement” by former US President Donald Trump that turned out to be the launch of an official NFT collection, the Trump Digital Trading Cards have nevertheless caught the attention of traders.
The pool increased in trading volume after it launched on Thursday, to 5,548 ETH or over $6.5 million as of Sunday morning, according to Open sea. The project is currently on OpenSea’s website as the most popular project.
However, the price of Trump Digital Trading Cards has been turbulent over the past 24 hours. The project’s floor price peaked around 0.84 ETH or about $990 on Saturday, before plunging as low as 0.32 ETH or about $376 early Sunday morning.
The price of the cheapest Trump-branded NFT has since fallen back a bit, rising to 0.490 ETH or around $577, on OpenSea at the time of writing.
Trump’s NFT rollout went exactly as you’d expect
The digital collectibles crept into the cultural spotlight Saturday night as the subject of satire on the late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live. Last night’s episode opened with a skit from comedian James Austin Johnson, who mimicked the former president’s announcement to unveil the digital collectibles.
“It seems like a scam — and in many ways it is — but we love the Trump cards,” said Johnson’s depiction of Trump, referring to NFTs by their “technical term” as “Nifties.”
Johnson referenced ongoing investigations surrounding Trump, such as his alleged mishandling of classified information, during the comedian’s satirical promotion of the digital collectibles.
“The best part is that each card comes with an automatic chance to win an exclusive mystery prize where you can choose anything from this nice box,” he said, holding up a box filled with papers marked ‘CLASSIFIED.’
The show also poked fun at the contents of NFTs from the collection, which Trump has described which depicts “scenes concerning [his] life’, like him in a space suit, camouflage hunting gear and a cowboy hat.
“Remember, when you buy a card, you can’t choose which one to get; it can be me on the cover of a romance, or I do splits, I do Titanicor even me as Jessica Rabbit,” Johnson said.
Later in the show below Saturday Night Live‘s Weekend update, comedians Colin Jost and Michael Che also tore into the project. Jost pointed out the unusual timing of the NFT collection’s launch.
“It’s such a fun move to get into NFTs after the whole market just crashed,” he said. “It’s like getting into Kanye now, which Trump also did.”
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Trump Digital Trading Cards have also been the subject of humor on other late-night television shows, such as Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel Live!and The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert.
“The ex-president of the United States, the former most powerful man in the world, has launched a line of trading cards,” Colbert said on his show the day Trump’s project was revealed. “This is the least worthy attempt at post-presidential merchandising since the launch of Tickle-me-Truman.”
The collection of NFTs consists of 45,000 individual collectibles and was originally priced at $99 each, but individual NFTs have sold for significantly more since sold out in less than a day after the launch.
A 1-of-1 NFT from the collection sold for an eye-watering 37 ETH or around $43,600 on Saturday, according to polygon scanning. The NFT showed a monotone photo of Trump in a tuxedo posing in front of a staircase, accompanied by a signature from the former president.
The project’s fine print states that 10% of secondary sales of Trump Digital Trading Cards will be directed to NFT International, the company that bought the right to use Trump’s likeness for the project, according to CollectTrumpCards.com.
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Skeptics of the project on Reddit have warned those interested in purchasing one of the project’s collectibles to ‘STAY AWAY’, claiming that 1,000 – or about 2% – of the digital trading cards are held by a wallet, who appeared to receive royalties. This suggests that a significant number of items were still held by the project’s creators, and that they could theoretically tank the project’s value if all the NFTs were sold at once.
Some users on Twitter have also tweaked visuals using NFTs belonging to Trump’s collection, finding watermarks from stock photos. One user pointed out that an NFT of Trump in a flight suit has remnants of a watermark from a Shutterstock image and another has part of an Adobe stock image watermark.
