Donald Trump NFTs Surge After Tucker Carlson Interview

Prices and volumes of Donald Trump’s NFT collections surged on Thursday after an interview with media personality Tucker Carlson on X, formerly Twitter, went viral - amassing 110 million views within hours of its airing.

As of European afternoon hours, the Polygon-based Trump Digital Trading Cards were selling for over 0.13 ether (ETH), or just over $215, up from 0.1 ETH, or $150, last week. The collection has amassed over 17 ether in trading volume, according to data from NFT marketplace OpenSea.

Trump released the collection of 45,000 fantasy cards last December for $99 apiece, featuring images of him in a style similar to collectible baseball cards. The collection has over 13,000 unique holders as of Thursday.

Collectors who purchased one of the digital trading cards are automatically entered into a "sweepstakes" to receive "experiences" with Trump, including a Zoom call, a dinner in Miami, or a cocktail hour at Mar-a-Lago, as CoinDesk previously reported.

The cards sold out quickly at the time. As of Thursday, data shows a wallet tagged "6D65A7" holds the highest individual Trump NFTs with 602 cards followed by 72F891 at 500 cards. Neither of the two holders has listed his or her NFTs for sale.

Trump was recently revealed to be a major holder of tokens. The former president and leading Republican candidate for next year’s election held $2.8 million in a cryptocurrency wallet as of early August, as reported, and earned some $4.87 million in licensing fees from the Trump NFT collection.

As such, the NFT collection has steadily fallen in value in the past several months amid a general decline in the broader crypto market.

Prices are down more than 50% from a May peak of 0.2 ETH, with daily trading falling from an average of over 90 per day to under 50, as per OpenSea data.