In less than 24 hours, President-elect Donald Trump‘s latest cryptocurrency business venture, a meme coin named $TRUMP has triple folded in value. Markets witnessed an anomalous surge in the price of the coin from its initial price of $0.18 to skyrocketing around $72 by the end of the day, reaching an astronomical market cap of $72 billion in hours from its launch.
Despite the highly volatile and speculative nature of crypto market, $TRUMP token’s performance has become one of the hottest trending topics. Chicago Bulls legend Scottie Pippen, who has long been an advocate for cryptocurrency and has been outspoken about his own meme coin, $BALL, reacted to the news as well. First, the former champ posed a question on Twitter regarding Trump’s coin, asking his fans, “What are your thoughts about it?”
Next, he invited his followers to submit captions for one of Trump’s many iconic pictures. Captured by photographer Harry Benson for TIME magazine, this image of Trump from the 1990 has seen a resurgence on Twitter. Investors and supporters, including Scottie Pippen, are sharing and resharing the picture—a signal of their newly gained wealth.
Trump launched a meme coin… what are your thoughts about it?
— Scottie Pippen (@ScottiePippen) January 18, 2025
Caption this pic.twitter.com/xaXpIEnCPb
— Scottie Pippen (@ScottiePippen) January 18, 2025
However, critics of President Trump have raised questions about the ethical implications of a president-elect launching his own currency, calling it “predatory” due to an LLC linked to Trump Organization holding 80% of the token supply.
Scottie Pippen, on the other hand, has been very active lately on Twitter and in media in general. He has been promoting his token project, $BALL, which tokenizes the NBA Finals Game 5 ball from the Chicago Bulls’ first championship run in 1991. The 59-year-old former champ recently made an appearance on the PBD Podcast, where he made some outrageous claims that were sure to stir up the comments section.
Scottie Pippen admits he and Michael Jordan “were never great friends”
Widely regarded as the best duo in NBA history, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen broke viewership records with their mid-air antics and on-court chemistry, achieving the rare feat of three-peating on two distinct occasions. One would think that winning six NBA titles together would create a bond akin to comrades who survived a war together. On the contrary, Pippen revealed that he talked to Jordan for the last time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Michael is a very difficult person to deal with… Great teammate, but we just never were great friends… I guess the last three championships that we won, we trained together at his house, but other than that, we didn’t really put a lot of time in away from basketball.
Scottie Pippen said about his former teammate
On one other occasion, Pippen pronounced that he would “choose an additional 100 million” over the opportunity to win another championship ring with Jordan. Soon after, he also took a shot at 40-year-old LeBron James‘ legacy, stating, “I didn’t have to chase mine,” implying that King had to betray kingdom after kingdom to win four titles with three different organizations.
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