When TRUMP becomes pastime, can the CAR of the Central African President get in the car?

By: blockbeats|2025/02/10 06:00:03
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Original Title: "President of the Central African Republic Asking Me to Buy a Coin? Can I Trust It?"
Original Author: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

After the brief "BNB Chain market" over the weekend, the daily "watering" ushered in a new "market express pass" on Monday—CAR.

Following Trump's "pearls before swine" official Meme coin release, Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra (Faustin-Archange Touadéra) X Platform official account (Odaily Note: Based on current information, it cannot be confirmed as a self-post) posted a highly infectious tweet around 6 a.m., stating, "We will release a Meme coin called CAR and aim to use this experiment to leverage the power of memes to propel the Central African Republic onto the world stage," and even directly posted the token contract address.

After the news spread, hot money flooded in, and countless people exclaimed, "In 2025, you might even see the President of the Central African Republic calling on you to buy the coin." The CAR token market cap also surged all the way, peaking at nearly $1 billion. As of the time of writing, the CAR market cap is currently reported at $650 million. Odaily Planet Daily will organize the relevant information about the token in this article for readers' reference.

Note: Meme coins are highly volatile; please choose your targets carefully and DYOR (Do Your Own Research).

The Power of the Express Pass Token CAR: The Next TRUMP?

At around 8:30 a.m., after the Central African Republic President's concept Meme coin CAR briefly exceeded a market cap of $470 million, it quickly fell back to $270 million.

Subsequently, as market news gradually spread, some suggested that the "account may have been hacked," while others believed it was "worth a try," just like the drama that followed the TRUMP token release. CAR's market cap also soared amid questioning and FOMO, rising to a peak of $980 million around 10 a.m.

It is worth noting that earlier, the Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra X Platform official account also emphasized in the tweet's comments section at the same time:

"As the world's second president to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender country, I have always had a clear understanding of the potential of cryptocurrency and its benefits globally. For all information regarding the CAR Meme, please visit http://car.meme (Odaily Planet Daily Note: Currently, the website has been restricted by the domain provider namecheap.com and cannot be accessed)."

Currently, the market focus is primarily on the following aspects:

1. Is the "Central African President Coin" real?

Regarding this matter, based on the flow of funds in the market, the majority tends to hold a positive view (or in other words, most people are willing to believe it is real).

Those holding a contrary view mainly come from a technical perspective: Unrevealed XYZ founder Yokai Ryujin issued a warning stating that the process of registering the CAR domain on the domain provider namecheap.com does not look like something a "president or country would do," and pointed out that the domain was registered just three days ago. Subsequently, Namecheap officials stated that they have "suspended abusive services."

Additionally, Platform X has suspended the official X account @Carmeme_news dedicated to the Meme coin, but the Central African President has stated that he is "working with X" to restore the page as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Jupiter officials have also stepped forward: Jupiter co-founder meow first posted, "As this is our first token of this kind, we have contacted the CAR office to further verify the validity of the token. We will provide real-time updates on any information we receive. The team has temporarily verified CAR to prevent users from mistakenly buying the token, but there is still much we do not know, including the token's origin, doubts about the lock-up, etc. Please be cautious of risks." Subsequently, he issued another warning, stating, "We are introducing an organic score in our platform's Trending Tokens module, which will not indicate the authenticity of the token, only showing that there are many genuine traders transacting the token. Jupiter will introduce a tag based on this to avoid verification in such cases."

In the latest update, Jupiter co-founder meow stated that they have contacted the CAR deployment team for on-chain verification but have not yet received any off-chain confirmation.

It is worth mentioning that according to AI tools, the deploying wallet address of CAR, 121ftnYRm3WJmDHCWrazzRoyZAzZQ4xc5XD7dp3sfpfo, is relatively "clean," as it has not previously issued any tokens.

When TRUMP becomes pastime, can the CAR of the Central African President get in the car?

Jupiter's temporary verification does not constitute authenticity confirmation

Current Conclusion: Inconclusive.

2. Was the Central African President's Video a deepfake?

Around 7:30 a.m., the Central African President's X platform account posted another "shout-out video for a product."

However, with the advancement of AI deepfake technology, such videos still cannot be used as evidence to prove that the account's post was made by the Central African President himself.

Subsequently, there were reports that AI Deepfake detection models Deepware and Avatrify flagged the video of the Central African Republic President announcing the launch of the Meme coin CAR as suspicious.

Additionally, X platform user Crypto Dreamer raised doubts about the video content: "The wording used in the tweet video is very strange, and the current time is midnight locally. It makes no sense for them to launch a currency at that time, and their official language is French. The content in this tweet video is only in English, with no French version."

Current Conclusion: The video may be a deepfake face-swapping forgery.

3. What is the CAR Token's Economic Model?

According to Solscan data, the token distribution data aligns roughly with the CAR project's website's disclosed tokenomics. Among the top 4 wallet addresses:

The wallet 51MsZhT6xPSFZ3KriJKuuk2mivcnrszCw8Noo7NJsQDL holds 33.31% of the tokens;

The wallet 5aXLXUwt6KvsfHmv1zwyxdaezETbTu6i2rV5R2sFMhnV holds approximately 25% of the tokens;

The wallet 2Dd5LUBQmUHp17fTJgu5qNdAm2R9ZLLEFprYVJvdazmr holds 9.81% of the tokens;

The wallet HAZrZNBuvcy6M4G5M38wweZtgsZm43WgpbWbTErNU8MM holds 8.39% of the tokens.

Solscan Interface Token Information

According to previous information on the project's official website, the CAR token has only a 9.3% public distribution, with 35% of that allocated to the development of the Central African Republic; the creator and company token share is 25%; liquidity injection accounts for 20.7%; and an additional 10% of the tokens will be allocated to charitable organizations. The former president of the Central African Republic had also mentioned in a tweet that "80% of the tokens have been locked via @streamflow_fi." However, it is suspicious that the 20% of the CAR supply promised to be allocated to the liquidity pool by the project's officials had not been added as of the time of writing.

CAR Tokenomics

Whether CAR is the official Meme coin of the Central African Republic remains shrouded in mystery.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the market, there is a "speculator's frenzy" and a "rug puller's pain."

Who Got on the CAR Bandwagon? Some Profited Thousands of Times, While Others Rug Pulled Over $40 Million

Whether the CAR token is real or fake, trading in the market continues every moment. Some have profited hundreds or even thousands of times, while others have sadly rug pulled.

Wallet One: Invested $5,000, Profited 2450x

As monitored by Lookonchain, wallet address Fs7md made a profit of $12 million from an investment of only $5,000 in less than 3 hours, with a return of 2450x.

Immediately after the President of the Central African Republic (@FA_Touadera) released the CAR token contract address, this wallet address spent 25 SOL ($5,000) to purchase 46.57 million CAR tokens, then sold 22.65 million CAR tokens at a price of 8,395 SOL ($167,000), retaining 23.92 million CAR tokens ($10.5 million) and making a total profit of over $12 million.

Wallet Two: Rug Pulled Over $40 Million, But Made $440,000 in Scalping

According to Lookonchain monitoring, at the moment the President of the Central African Republic released the CAR contract address, a user spent 25 SOL ($4,905) to buy 49.6 million CAR tokens, which surged to a value of over $40 million at one point. Unfortunately, the user sold all the tokens at once for only 30 SOL ($5,957). Realizing the missed opportunity, the user quickly spent 139 SOL ($27,400) to buy back 4.08 million CAR tokens, then sold them for 2,358 SOL ($46,740), making a profit of $440,000.

Wallet Three: $3 Million Profit, 500x ROI

According to lmk.fun monitoring, 3 hours ago, a user made a $3 million profit on CAR with 30.13 SOL ($5656). He spent 29.73 SOL to buy 9.852 million CAR shortly after the Central African Republic President's post and paid a total transaction fee of 0.4 SOL.

Wallet Four: $3.08 Million Profit, 78x ROI

According to on-chain analyst AI Auntie's monitoring, savvy wallet 7rCbH spent 200 SOL to buy 14.54 million tokens on CAR half an hour after launch, with a cost as low as $0.002725 per token; subsequently, in stages during the price increase, he sold all tokens at an average price of $0.375, exited the market with a $3.08 million profit, and achieved a 7786% ROI.

Whale Rebalance: Dump TRUMP, Buy CAR

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a wallet associated with SpiderCrypto exchanged 110,619 TRUMP for 2.49 million CAR, valued at $1.52 million.

There are always people participating in this high-stakes gamble because the returns always look so enticing.

Summary: CAR Token's Official Authenticity Pending Verification, but PolitiMeme is Set in Stone

Currently, CAR's market cap has dropped to $420 million, and whether it is the official coin issued by the Central African President is still up in the air. However, following the various political concept tokens dominating PolitiFi, PolitiMeme has become established with the Trump family launching an official Meme coin.

Some have compiled a list of various African presidents with the potential to issue coins, while others have pointed out that the CAR official website information mirrors that of the TRUMP token website, both mentioning that "the token is not intended to serve as any form of investment, security, or financial instrument. It is designed solely for entertainment and community participation and serves as a symbol of community unity. CAR has no intrinsic value and should not be seen as a financial asset."

Nevertheless, the process of cryptocurrency mainstreaming will continue with similar token controversies and pathways such as ETF funds, where everyone is both a participant and a witness. Just as Central African President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's X platform's official account pinned tweet says: "Bitcoin is a universal currency."

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On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.



On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.


Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.


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Side Effects of ETFs


Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.



Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.


According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.


This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.


Chart showing the trend of net outflows for Grayscale among the 11 institutions


Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.



In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.


According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.



However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.


The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.


Robinhood Takes a Stand, Traditional Brokerages Join the Fray


On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.



With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.


In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.



Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.



Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.



User Data Breach: Is Coinbase Still Secure?


In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.


Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.


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Visualization: ChatGPT, Source: Farside


In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.


Visualization: ChatGPT


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CEXs are All in Self-Rescue Mode


Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.



Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.


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Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.


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The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.


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