A recent investigation alleges that since US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the Trump family’s crypto fortune has surged to over $1 billion from his multiple digital asset ventures.
Trump Family’s Crypto Ventures Reap over $1B
On Thursday, the Financial Times (FT) reported that the Trump crypto empire, built by the US President and his family, has generated more than $1 billion in pre-tax profits over the past year.
The investigation explained that Trump’s crypto ventures have significantly boosted the US President’s net worth on paper by billions of dollars. However, they calculated the potential income only from the realized profits of World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token and USD1 stablecoin, and the official TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins.
According to FT’s calculations, the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins, which launched just days before Trump took office in January, have made around $362 million and $65 million, respectively, for a total of $427 million in sales and trading fees.
FT's calculations of Trump's realized profits. Source: Financial Times
Meanwhile, the report’s data estimates that the WLFI token has generated approximately $550 million so far, and potentially made $42 million from the USD1 stablecoin, which recorded $2.71 billion in total sales.
To maintain the value of USD1, the company must hold assets in reserve to back the token, so sales of these coins do not immediately become profits. But if the money raised from the sales had been placed into short-term US debt, World Liberty Financial would have made around $40mn in interest and fees from the assets it holds to back its USD1 stablecoin so far.
Moreover, the investigation notes that Trump declared a personal income of $57.3 million from World Liberty Financial in his latest financial report, which covers the 2024 calendar year.
When asked about the accuracy of FT’s calculations, Eric Trump affirmed that the actual figure was “probably more.” He previously explained that his family embraced crypto after several banks cut them off following the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.
“At that time, I realized how fragile the financial system was and how easily it could be weaponized against you,” he stated in August, claiming that the decisions were likely political, leading him and his family to turn to the industry.
US President Faces Conflict Of Interests Claims
As the report noted, the questions about potential conflicts of interest mount, with many highlighting that, unlike most of his predecessors, President Trump has not put his crypto ventures in a trust managed by an independent party. Instead, most of his businesses are owned by a revocable trust, of which he is the sole beneficiary, and managed by his son Donald Trump Jr.
In June, Democratic lawmakers proposed a bill to prevent crypto-related conflicts of interest. As reported by Bitcoinist, Senator Adam Schiff introduced the Curbing Officials’ Income and Nondisclosure (COIN) Act to ban the president, vice president, and their immediate family from getting into any crypto business while in office.
Similarly, a trio of Senate Democrats pressed the new head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in July about the US President’s crypto ventures and a potential conflict of interest related to the Trump family’s stablecoin, USD1.
Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer to President George W. Bush, told FT that he believes President Trump should divest from all financial interests that potentially pose a conflict with his official responsibilities.
“Every other president since the Civil War has avoided any significant financial conflicts of interest with their official duties,” Painter added. Nonetheless, the White House has argued that in his first term, Trump was the only president to lose money in office and “His sole motivation to leave behind his life of luxury to run for office was to save our country and people.”
WLFI trades at $0.14 in the one-week chart. Source: WLFIUSDT on TradingView
Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
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