$TRUMP, the token from the former President of the United States, has left many stories of overnight fortunes in the crypto world. Many people once celebrated their gains, while many others lamented missing out on a life-changing opportunity. However, over a year has passed, the stock market has soared, the crypto market has dimmed, and speculation never stops. The various stories about Trump Coin have gradually faded into obscurity.
But recently, someone in the crypto world has once again become the center of attention due to Trump Coin, @kimchi1x. It is said that he once made $40 million from Trump Coin.
Unlike many well-known meme coin players who are famous for making big money, Kimchi's X account has nearly 80,000 followers, but he has hardly ever posted anything related to meme coin trading on X, in fact, he has never posted anything of the sort.
His X account is filled with content showing off wealth, luxurious food, fancy cars, and luxury watches. Since February last year, his X account has been full of such tweets, not a single word, and then every few months, he would post a few photos or a video, documenting his life of sudden wealth.
So, it's a bit strange that he has now gained such popularity, considering he has been flaunting his wealth for over a year. However, this time, all his tweets are overwhelmingly about him making $40 million from Trump Coin.
There are many doubts on X about whether Kimchi actually made this much money from Trump Coin. Many people have become rich from Trump Coin, but those who have gained such widespread fame usually have on-chain records to verify their claims, or they were already well-known meme coin players in the community, leaving little room for doubt.
However, there is no on-chain data to confirm Kimchi's alleged $40 million profit. @sukie234 pointed out that many of Kimchi's flaunted wealth images are from AI-generated photos:
Some have also mentioned that many of the items Kimchi flaunts as his wealth were actually borrowed from others:
Another well-known meme coin player, Orangie, once had a face-to-face interview with kimchi before Trump Coin was launched. From the interview at that time, we learned that kimchi started trading meme coins in early April 2024, but he quickly caught on. By November 2024, he had achieved a monthly profit of at least six figures in USD.
During the interview, we could see his battle station, with his Solana address holding a balance of $150,000 displayed on the computer screen. He mentioned that he spends 15 hours a day rug pulling and scanning the chains.
He also touched on some more personal topics. For example, he was studying business at the University of Southern California at the time, mainly because his parents wanted him to. In the video, Orangie also shared real-time updates of his meeting with kimchi with other members in their small group through Discord video chat, and this type of small group usually consists of influential and well-known players in the space who mutually support each other and perform rug pulls together.
In conclusion, I am inclined to believe that kimchi's $40 million earnings through Trump Coin are genuine, or at least not to be doubted. After all, Trump Coin has indeed created many wealth legends, providing enough liquidity for these individuals to exit with profits.
Destiny is preordained. Orangie's interview with kimchi took place on January 14, 2025, where kimchi stated in the interview that he would retire after earning eight figures in USD. A few days later, Trump Coin was launched, and kimchi achieved his goal, beginning to enjoy his life of sudden wealth.
A somewhat poignant conversation took place in kimchi's Porsche 911. Orangie asked kimchi, "Don't you believe in HODLing?"
kimchi's response was that he does believe in it, but he developed PTSD about long-term holding. Orangie thought it was because he was deeply trapped by choosing to HODL in 2021, but kimchi explained that it was because he took large positions at the peak of $POPCAT and some other high market cap meme coins, suffering significant losses, and no longer believed in HODLing, choosing to become a paper hand instead.
After starting to trade meme coins in April 2024, kimchi initially thought that the meme coin market might end with the end of that summer. At that time, he could not foresee an opportunity that would completely change his life. However, later on, he began to think that meme coins might never see a "grand finale."
kimchi is lucky. The pump.fun innovation, with its extremely low cost and great simplification of coin issuance and transaction processes, has profoundly changed the way meme coins are played. Prior to that, everyone was accustomed to a slow-paced and longer community building process. The opportunity we missed was largely due to being trapped in the inertia of meme coin thinking, not realizing that attention could be monetized so quickly and in such a crazy way.
If you pay enough attention to the meme coin players on platform X, you will find many young people like kimchi. When they discovered that by tirelessly sitting in front of a computer, intensely focusing on capturing the latest on-chain trends faster than others, and then clicking a mouse, they could harvest wealth that was previously unimaginable, they seized what was possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and earned a significant fortune.
kimchi's introduction to meme coins came when a friend of his from Fortnite shared with him that trading meme coins could earn him a decent daily income. Looking back, the 2024–2025 meme coin craze, following NFTs, may have been the most successful "Mass Adoption" in the cryptocurrency market.
Through his Trump Coin, Trump siphoned off a massive amount of liquidity from the crypto space. And these individuals who became rich due to Trump, had no faith in cryptocurrency before encountering meme coins, or who lost faith in cryptocurrency due to the fast-paced nature of meme coins, will not let the wealth they have acquired circulate within this market anymore.
Although young, they have been through the market's baptism of fire and know the cruelty of the market. They understand what kind of game they are playing in the end.
So, will meme coins never shine as brightly as they once did?
They will. Whether we are still young or not, we all want to "change our fate against the heavens."
Young people's choices are no longer limited to stock trading. They will bet on the recent World Cup, speculate on sneakers, hypebeast brands, Pokémon cards, game skins... Any market, no matter how niche, will have far greater vitality than we imagine as long as it can still make money.
There are countless young people like kimchi who harbor dreams of making $1000 a day and have embarked on speculation in a certain market. Most people may fall in the cutthroat competition, but there are always those who can stand at the summit.
Perhaps meme coins purely driven by attention are unlikely to reach their peak again. Many players have recently lamented that Jimothy, the globally popular meme image sent by the White House X account, barely surpassed a $50 million market cap. This may indicate that this attention-based playstyle has fallen into narrative fatigue, making it difficult for a TikTok or any other social media viral topic or image to reach the heights of several billion dollars in market value.
But that doesn't mean the meme coin story has come to an end. The opportunity to change your life may be just around the corner.
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