Incoming US First Lady Melania Trump has launched a cryptocurrency of her own just hours before her husband Donald Trump's inauguration.

She made the announcement just hours after Donald Trump launched $Trump cryptocurrency.

Both coins spiked but remained volatile during trading.

Sharing her currency, Melania Trump wrote on X: "he Official Melania Meme is live!"

"You can buy $MELANIA now," she said.

  The website for the "Official Melania Meme" said the crypto asset was created on the Solana blockchain.

The $Trump meme coin has a total market valuation of about $12 billion (£9.8bn) and the $Melania cryptocurrency stands at just over $2 billion, according to the CoinMarketCap website as quoted by Independent.

Despite criticising it earlier, Trump had accepted digital assets as donations during 2024 presidential campaign.