ANALYSIS: Mapping Donald Trump’s growing crypto empire
Donald Trump, the president of the United States and convicted felon, has embraced crypto.
He’s expanded his personal business ventures into the industry and has found ways to embrace it from the Oval Office, issuing executive orders and promising legislation.
Protos has tried to summarize the various connections between the cryptocurrency industry and the president’s family.
World Liberty Financial
World Liberty Financial purports to be a DeFi-focused firm that has launched a stablecoin and maintains a portfolio of tokens.
The project named Donald Trump Sr. as its “chief crypto advocate” and his three sons as its “Web3 ambassadors.”
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, two of the aforementioned sons, were previously implicated in an investigation of the Trump Organization that resulted in the brothers receiving a ban from serving as a director or officer of any New York corporation for two years.
Read more: Is World Liberty Financial a dead project?
Additionally, DT Marks DEFI LLC, a Trump-affiliated firm, receives almost half the tokens and 75% of sale proceeds, as well as owning 60% of WLF Holdco LLC, which has the rights to protocol revenue.
The largest investor in the project was Justin Sun, who at the time was being targeted by the Securities and Exchange Commission. That case has subsequently been paused, and Sun has been named as an advisor to the project.
This project has had only two governance votes so far: one back in December to launch an as-yet-unlaunched AAVE instance and a more recent one to test an airdrop function.
No votes have been held for the decision to launch a stablecoin or the various decisions to purchase tokens for the World Liberty portfolio.
Read more: World Liberty Financial offers quid pro quo for investment, report
World Liberty Financial itself has engaged with governance in a strange way, choosing to make posts that seem to be AI-generated and contain factual inaccuracies.
Furthermore, reportedly, among the things that mattered when it came to inclusion in the World Liberty portfolio was the project’s willingness to invest in World Liberty.
World Liberty has also launched the USD1 stablecoin that has quickly grown to over $2 billion in market capitalization and currently provides no attestation or audit to verify its reserve.
Additionally, USD1 will be used for MGX’s investment in Binance, a firm that recently pleaded guilty in the United States to money laundering, unlicensed money transmitting, and sanctions violations.
$TRUMP
Trump and Trump-affiliated CIC Digital LLC partnered with Fight Fight Fight LLC to issue a memecoin branded, like many of his businesses, with his name.
CIC Digital LLC also reportedly owns a portion of Fight Fight Fight LLC.
Filings with the Office of Government Ethics shared by Citizens for Ethics show that Trump was the manager, president, secretary, and treasurer for CIC Digital LLC.
Read more: Every Trump family memecoin has lost money
This memecoin currently has a market capitalization of approximately $2.6 billion, with 80% of the total supply intended for the token creators and CIC Digital LLC.
Perhaps more importantly, it’s become a way to gain greater access to the president, with the largest holders, including Sun, earning the right to dine with the so-called “leader of the free world.”
The controversy around this pay-for-access system has slowed the advancement of several pieces of crypto legislation that the administration promised.
$MELANIA
Melania, Donald’s third wife, has also not been willing to avoid the appeal of memecoins.
Her team has issued a memecoin that shares her name, and it was issued by MKT World, LLC.
Corporate documents filed with the Florida Secretary of State name Melania as the president of the firm that was incorporated in Delaware, and it uses Mar-a-Lago as the mailing address for the entity.
This token has a market capitalization of approximately $200 million, and 60% of the total token supply is reserved for the team and the treasury.
Hut 8 and the American Bitcoin Corporation
Hut 8 is a bitcoin mining firm that partnered with Eric Trump to launch the American Bitcoin Corporation.
This entity will take advantage of “Eric Trump’s commercial acumen, capital markets expertise, and commitment to the advancement of decentralized financial systems.”
Eric is notably one of the leaders of the Trump Organization who signed reimbursement checks to Michael Cohen as part of Trump Sr.’s hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.
In this transaction, “Hut 8 contributed the majority of its wholly owned ASIC miners” and “establishes American Bitcoin as a pure-play mining platform.”
Trump trading cards
Trump’s Digital Trading Cards are NFTs that feature depictions of Trump.
The tokens are issued by NFT INT LLC, which licenses Trump’s likeness from the previously mentioned CIC Digital LLC.
The token also made large purchasers eligible to spend time with Trump, advertising that they could receive “dinner with the president at his private country club and a piece of the actual suit from his famous debate.”
Read more: Tucker Carlson interview bumps price of ridiculous Trump NFTs
For a period, the project also used Bitcoin Ordinals as an additional promotional bonus for purchasers of these NFTs.
Melania’s NFTs
Melania Trump and her team have also released multiple NFTs.
One of these, related to “The Head of State Collection,” was accused of wash trading, as the winning bid came from the same address that created the auction.
Trump’s office claimed at the time that the “transaction was facilitated on behalf of a third-party buyer.”
Read more: Trump’s crypto ties may haunt him in court
This wasn’t Melania’s only NFT-related controversy. She also released a collection that seemed to inappropriately use NASA images.
$DJT
Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical fraudster, has claimed that he collaborated with Barron Trump to launch the DJT token, which he purported to be an official Trump cryptocurrency.
However, Barron’s endorsement of this token never came.
Shkreli has since tried to place the blame on a minor who was supposedly in contact with Barron and claimed that he had little financial reason to be involved, despite the many hours he spent defending the project on his timeline and in X Spaces.
Read more: No one surprised as DJT token has finally rugged
Eventually, a huge portion of the liquidity related to this token was pulled out in what investors described as a rug-pull.
Cryptocurrencies promoted by the Trump family
The Trump family has also been willing to endorse other crypto projects.
Among these is Donald Trump Jr. promoting the “Let’s Go Brandon” coin.
In a radio interview, Donald Trump Sr. was also willing to endorse the project, stating that it “sounds good.”
Read more: Donald Trump Jr says ‘Richard Heart is innocent’ in X account hack
Let’s Go Brandon was also promoted by former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon.
Eric Trump also cannot avoid the temptation to endorse projects, encouraging investors that it was “a great time to add $ETH. You can thank me later.”
This announcement came shortly after World Liberty Financial, where Eric is a “Web3 Ambassador,” moved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ether to Coinbase.
This tweet was later edited, as the price of ether fell, to remove the phrase “you can thank me later.”
Broadly, these various projects show the willingness of the Trump family to cash in on their name using cryptocurrency projects.
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