The Trump family’s crypto empire rakes in over a billion dollars, reports FT
Well, this is quite a headline: Donald Trump and his family have apparently pulled in more than a billion dollars in pre-tax profits from their crypto ventures over the last year alone, according to the Financial Times.
And get this – that billion-dollar figure only counts the money they’ve actually cashed in. The FT suggests that once you factor in all the gains from their crypto holdings that haven’t been sold yet, the family’s total earnings are likely much, much higher.
Where did all this money come from? Mostly from a mix of sources: the DeFi platform World Liberty Financial and its USD1 stablecoin, an American Bitcoin mining operation, and the hugely popular TRUMP and MELANIA meme coins. The TRUMP and MELANIA meme coins alone generated a cool $427 million, while sales of the WLFI token brought in about $550 million. Plus, World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin has seen a whopping $2.71 billion.
When the Financial Times asked Eric Trump if that $1 billion pre-tax profit estimate was accurate, he reportedly replied, “probably more.”
“At the heart of Trump’s newfound wealth is a rapidly growing cryptocurrency empire built by the president and his family,” the FT story stated. “This business has already reaped more than $1bn in pre-tax profits over the past year, in part thanks to a crypto boom fuelled by the administration’s own industry-friendly policies.”
Crypto assets also supercharge the Trump family’s net worth
Beyond the direct profits, these crypto ventures have boosted Trump’s paper net worth by billions. For instance, his stake in Trump Media & Technology Group – the company behind Truth Social, which also acts as a Bitcoin treasury firm – is now valued at an impressive $1.9 billion.
Other companies tied to the Trumps have also been making strategic moves. Trump Media, for example, recently partnered with crypto exchange Crypto.com. And in May, Trump Media announced plans to raise $2.5 billion specifically to add more Bitcoin to its balance sheet.
According to data from Bitcoin Treasuries, Trump Media has quickly become the eighth-largest corporate holder of Bitcoin globally, boasting 15,000 Bitcoins on its balance sheet. That puts them ahead of major players like Coinbase (one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the US) and even surpasses crypto miners CleanSpark and Hut 8 Mining. They even hold more BTC than Elon Musk’s Tesla, which has about 11,509 BTC in reserves.
Trump delivers on his “crypto president” promise
It’s been quite a shift for Donald Trump. From being a crypto skeptic during his first term, he’s now rebranded himself as the “crypto president.” During his campaign, he made a series of promises to the digital asset industry, aiming to turn the US into the “crypto capital” of the world.
And it seems he’s making good on those promises. Earlier this year, he signed a bill to establish a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. He also signed the GENIUS Act into law in July, which provides a regulatory framework for stablecoins.
Conflict of interest concerns?
Naturally, all this has raised some eyebrows. Critics, including Democratic lawmaker Elizabeth Warren, have called for an investigation into President Trump and his family over potential conflicts of interest.
However, Donald Trump Jr. dismissed these claims earlier this month as “complete nonsense.” He argued that his father doesn’t actually track such investments. “I don’t think anyone actually believes that my father…would be looking at ledgers on the blockchain to see who bought what, and that carrying any kind of favor,” he said.
