tDonald Trump took away his business career and looked for a new way to make easy money using his name. He ran airlines, universities and wineries. Thanks to the apprentice show that made him a reality TV star, the US president slapped his name on real estate projects around the world built by other companies, along with Trump-branded steaks, vodka, deodorizers and bottled water. Many of these companies ultimately failed, but Trump rarely invested his own funds and he still walked away with a large licensing fee.
Today, as the most powerful figure in the world, Trump has found a cryptocurrency, perhaps the easiest way to profit from his name. A few days before his second term took office on January 20th, Trump’s family business launched a meme coin called $Trump. There is no inherent value beyond speculation. The coin quickly surged in value up to $75 per token, but crashed a few days later. Regardless of the ultimate price, Trump and his family praise him for a multi-million dollar fee as it is being traded by speculators who want the coin to get a quick profit, or people trying to curry favors him.
While it’s hard to keep up with all the ways Trump corrupts the US presidency and uses it for personal gain, his crypto venture is the most dangerous as it could allow him and his family to collect hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign investors and governments that are usually difficult to leak money to American politicians. Thanks to Memecoin and other deals, the Trump family’s wealth has increased by about $3 billion over the past six months. Trump has proven himself the most successful president by monetizing his presidency.
Trump’s foray into cryptocurrency highlights how, by exploiting his sense of immunity, he can utilize the presidency for his personal gain.
He is exempt from the Conflict of Interest Act, which prohibits federal employees from profiting from their position, but all US presidents since the 1970s have voluntarily adhered to these rules – even to Trump. Previous White House residents either sold financial holdings or set aside in blind trusts. However, in his first term, Trump refused to leave his business empire. This is primarily centered around the Trump organization and is managed by his sons.
Since Trump’s first term, his family business has evolved beyond real estate conglomerates that license Trump’s name to hotels, luxury towers and golf courses around the world, earning millions of dollars in branding and management fees without investing their own funds in most projects. The business now includes a portfolio of social media and crypto ventures, offering new ways to benefit from Trump’s inauguration. And Trump is more encouraging to ignore the norms set by past presidents thanks to the Republican-led rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court last year that Trump gave him an “absolute immunity” from prosecutors of official conduct as president.
Trump’s foray into cryptocurrency highlights how he can leverage the presidency for his personal gain by exploiting an industry well-known for his sense of immunity and for his lack of fraud and transparency. After the value of his memo coin collapsed, Trump’s crypto venture announced in April that the 220 biggest buyers of tokens were invited to a private gala dinner with the president at his Virginia golf club, and top 25 buyers would be able to access VIP receptions on Trump and the White House tour. As the contest progressed, $Trump Coin attracted the attention of the new round of media, and its value increased by more than 50%. The more people bought the token, the more Trump and his family profited from crypto transactions, which are usually covered in anonymity. Since Memecoin was launched in January in January, Trump companies have received $312 million from crypto sales and $43 million for other fees, according to an analysis of Washington Post’s transaction data.
Of course, for decades, US presidents have used private dinners and gatherings to grant special access to wealthy donors and raise funds for political parties and their own campaigns. However, campaign contributions have legal restrictions on how they can be spent, and US donors must not remain anonymous and disclose all contributions to political candidates. The sweepstakes dinner, hosted by Trump’s crypto business, was not a fundraiser or a campaign event. It was a gathering arranged to enrich him and his family directly.
Beyond Trump’s inherent conflict, where he is doing business within an industry where Trump has the great power to regulate as president, Trump has also opened himself up to foreign influence as his Memecoin became a way for foreign actors to concentrate money on his family. Trump’s crypto business refused to publish a list of people invited to dinner at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia last month, but media organizations have compiled a list of attendees, including foreign citizens who are normally prohibited from donating funds to American politicians. (The Washington Post discovered that almost half of the top 220 memocoin holders purchased coins from a crypto exchange that rejects US-based customers, meaning they are probably foreign buyers.
The most famous foreign investor to attend Trump’s dinner was Justin Sun. Justin Sun has established the crypto platform Tron, and earned the distinction of being a Chinese billionaire who spent more than $20 million on President’s Memocoin and being the top buyer of the contest. In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Joe Biden administration accused the Sun of fraud and market manipulation. But weeks after Trump took office, the SEC asked federal court to suspend the case.
What is behind the SEC’s change of mind about pursuing accusations against the Sun under the Second Trump Administration? Sun is one of the top investors at World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture launched by Trump’s family in September. After Trump won the November election, Sun bought $75 million in the world’s Liberty Tokens, and he was appointed as the company’s advisor.
World freedom lies at the heart of another foreign entanglement and potential conflicts of interest for Trump and the crypto industry. On May 1, the president’s son Eric and business partner Zach Witkov (who is also the son of Trump envoy Steve Witkov) announced that the government-backed investment fund in Abu Dhabi will invest $2 billion using Stable Coin, a digital currency offered by the world’s Liberty. The deal could ultimately generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the president and his family.
A few years before he entered business, Trump had dismissed cryptocurrency as a “scam” with value “on the basis of thin air.” But Trump dramatically changed his songs when he met his personal memocoin top pay client at dinner last month. “Past administrations have made your life miserable,” Trump told guests, referring to the Biden administration cracking down on crypto companies. And the president promised to do something else. “Cryptocurrency has many meanings. Cryptocurrency has many common sense.”
Already, the Trump administration has pushed for industry deregulation, in April instructing the Justice Department to dissolve the unit focused on investigating crypto-related fraud. Last year, a federal judge sentenced Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded the now-insolvency FTX Crypto Exchange, to 25 years in prison for perpetuating one of the biggest financial frauds in modern history and covering up customers with billions of dollars.
Once Trump dismantled industry regulations and law enforcement, he has pledged to make the United States “global crypto capital.” And the president continues to enrich himself and his family along the way.
Mohamad Bazzi is the director and professor of journalism at the Hagop Keborkian Center at New York University.
