Indian crypto traders fall for $Trump, $Melania; BTC at new high, USDT premium triples
Indian crypto traders have fallen for Trump and Melania coins, the freshly minted meme tokens with no fundamentals. This was borne out by the sudden surge in Stable coin or USDT in India, which traded at an unusually steep premium on Monday, hours before Donald Trump’s inauguration.
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It was also the day Bitcoin (BTC), the blue chip in the crypto universe, scaled a new high to cross $109,000.
As local punters, swept into the crypto frenzy, demanded $Trump and $Melania, launched by the US president-elect and the in-coing first lady, cryptocurrency platforms in India bought USDT which were swapped to procure the meme tokens. Though domestic crypto exchanges started listing the $Trump and $Malenia since Sunday afternoon, the new tokens were not available in India and there was no ready INR rates for the tokens. The platforms thus had to buy USDT and exchanged them for $Trump and $Melania to meet trader demand.
In India, the USDT, which is among the least volatile among crypto coins, typically trades at a premium of 2-5% to the inter-bank INR-US dollar exchange rate. It dips a little when there’s a sell-off in cryptos and rises a tad above 5% in a bullish market. However, on Monday, the premium jumped to 14% on the back of USDT purchase.
Unlike a stable coin which is linked to a specific asset or BTC which is accepted as a form of payment in several
