Former U.S. President Donald Trump released a new wave of NFT trading cards earlier this week and he has already seen their value drop significantly.
In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump said: "I am pleased to inform you that, due to the great success of my previously launched DIGITAL TRADING CARDS, we are doing it again, SERIES 2, AVAILABLE RIGHT NOW. GO TO collecttrumpcards.com. Have fun!"
When Trump released the first wave in December 2022, the presidential candidate was mocked for hyping up the cards as a "major announcement." He has since been ridiculed for the art depicted on the cards, which show him as various characters including as a superhero, a cowboy and an astronaut.
Trump's digital trading cards did see a price surge last month amid speculation that he would be indicted in New York. However, the price then fell back when Trump wasn't arrested on March 21 as he had predicted and fluctuated over the following days, before falling to 0.41 of an Ethereum (a benchmark cryptocurrency) on March 29.
The latest release has seen a notable drop in a few hours, despite an increase in sales activity.
The floor price for Trump's non-fungible token (NFT) trading cards was 0.42899 Ethereum (ETH) - about $887.07- as of April 18 at 12:45 p.m., according to the non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea.
Within seven hours the floor price for the NFT trading cards had fallen to as low as 0.12 as of 6:59 p.m. on April 18. Since the low of 0.12 ETH, the floor price has seen a slight increase to about 1.8 ETH.
The average trading card price on April 17 was 0.3943 ETH after a total of 38 sales. That compared to the average trading price on April 18 of 0.1569 ETH after a total of 1,035 sales.
Trump's initial NFT release saw the digital trading cards sell out within 12 hours of their release. They were initially priced at $99 and about 14,000 people purchased them.
The quick sell-out of the digital trading cards led Trump to take to social media to brag about the accomplishment.
"WE MADE HISTORY!" he wrote on a Truth Social post. "My Trump Digital Trading Cards sold out in hours. Congratulations to the collectors. Thank you."
Despite being mocked for the venture, Trump spoke on the conservative network OAN in December to defend the decision. He stated the digital trading card collection was about "art" and not money.
"You know, it's sort of comic book art when you think of it, but they showed me the art and I said, gee, I always wanted to have a 30-inch waist," the former president said.
"I'm looking at this stuff and I'm saying 'Wow, that's sorta cute, that might sell, that might sell.' They thought it would sell in six months, it sold in six hours."
Newsweek has contacted Donald Trump via email for comment.
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Gerrard Kaonga is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter and is based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on U.S. ... Read more
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