Melania Trump‘s adventures in cryptocurrency are off to a rough start. After dipping her toes in the NFT waters last month by selling an image of her “cobalt blue eyes,” the former First Lady hit a significant snag this week when she attempted to auction off a white hat (above) that she wore during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the White House in 2018. While part of the proceeds will go to providing foster children with computers, tablets, and internet access, the rest would go into Melania’s pockets.
There’s just one small problem, Melania is only accepting bids in Solana, which like most of the crypto market, took a huge hit in the most recent crash. Via The Washington Post:
Melania Trump’s hat auction may have become unlikely collateral damage in the crisis, a prime example of what happens when risk-taking intersects with terrible timing. The only cryptocurrency accepted on Trump’s website is Solana (SOL), which has been one of the hardest-hit, falling more than 40 percent over the previous week. The Solana blockchain (a distributed database that stores a secure and decentralized record of digital transactions) also had an outage on Friday and Saturday, further adding to its free fall. Had this auction taken place in December 2021, Trump would have been accepting bids in Solana during a surge in which its value had increased 11,150 percent since the beginning of the year.
The Solana price crash could cause Melania a nearly $90,000 loss, should the auction close at its current price. According to the Post, the auction was already frowned upon, given that most former first ladies go into philanthropic endeavors and don’t sell their formal attire for a profit. Taking a bath on the hat auction is just further embarrassment for Melania.
(Via Washington Post)