Bloomberg: How did the Trump family make $620 million in the cryptocurrency world?

  • The Trump family has leveraged their fame and political influence to rapidly accumulate $620 million in cryptocurrency investments, far outpacing traditional business ventures like real estate licensing deals.
  • Key projects contributing to their crypto wealth include World Liberty Financial (a token and stablecoin platform) and Trump Meme Coin (TRUMP), with the family holding significant stakes in both.
  • World Liberty Financial's token sales and reserves have generated nearly $390 million for the Trumps, while TRUMP tokens—backed by market sentiment—could unlock billions in value over time.
  • The family also benefits from ventures like Trump Media & Technology Group (parent of Truth Social) and American Bitcoin, a mining project poised to go public, adding further crypto-linked assets.
  • Regulatory loosening under Trump's administration and strategic partnerships (e.g., with Binance advisor Changpeng Zhao) have amplified their gains, despite controversies and volatility in meme-based tokens.
  • Critics highlight risks like market manipulation and lack of underlying value in meme coins, while the Trumps continue monetizing their brand through high-profile crypto events and holdings.
Summary

By Tom Maloney, Annie Massa and Demetrios Pogkas, Bloomberg

Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News

Bloomberg: How did the Trump family make $620 million in the cryptocurrency world?

 A photo of Donald Trump holding Bitcoin is displayed at a Coinchero store in Hong Kong in December 2024, marking the first time the price of Bitcoin exceeded $100,000. Image source: Bloomberg

On the surface, Donald Trump's personal net worth doesn't appear to have changed much since his return to the White House: $6.5 billion on Election Day and $6.4 billion now.

But a deeper look at the data reveals a stark and unprecedented shift in how he and his family have consolidated their wealth and are profiting from their fame, influence and power at a much faster pace than ever before.

Whether applying their brand to real estate projects or associating it with perfume and mattresses, the Trump family has long used licensing agreements to make quick money, compared to real estate developments that usually require years of planning and execution. Now with cryptocurrency, the Trump family has further accelerated the speed of monetizing its brand.

Combined with the loosening of restrictions on overseas transactions during the second Trump administration, it all created a bonanza. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, cryptocurrency investments have added at least $620 million to Donald Trump's wealth in a few months. The index values the Trump family's gains from projects such as World Liberty Financial and Trump Meme Coin (TRUMP) for the first time.

Bloomberg: How did the Trump family make $620 million in the cryptocurrency world?

 Trump's wealth is increasingly tied to cryptocurrencies and Memecoin. Source: Bloomberg Billionaires Index (Note: Excludes liabilities. Publicly traded assets in the latest valuation are as of the end of June.)

A growing number of cryptocurrencies and little-known companies that have gained value through their association with Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement are making far more money than the more than $34 million the Trump Organization raked in last year from real estate licensing deals.

Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization and Trump's second son, said: "I am extremely proud of our amazing company. We have never been stronger."

While President Trump’s assets are held in a trust managed by Donald Trump Jr., he still personally benefits directly from the success of the Trump Organization, and the Bloomberg Wealth Index attributes his family’s various interests to the “patriarch.” Many of the private investments in which the Trump children are involved are not included because the details of their financial interests are unclear, including Executive Branch, a private club in Washington, Metaplanet, a Japanese hotel company turned Bitcoin hoarder, Salem Media Group Inc., a broadcast and podcast company, Kalshi, a prediction market startup, and BlinkRX, an online drug retailer.

While Trump and his children have dabbled in cryptocurrency — Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have spoken, sometimes alone and sometimes together, at events in Abu Dhabi, Washington, Dubai and Las Vegas since December alone — one of the biggest boosts to Trump’s personal wealth is a homegrown project that’s been years in the making.

Bloomberg: How did the Trump family make $620 million in the cryptocurrency world?

 Eric Trump (left) and Donald Trump Jr. at the Bitcoin 2025 conference. Image source: Bloomberg

In January, Trump National Doral received approval to build about 1,500 luxury condos on the site, a longtime Trump family goal that required extensive outreach to the community. The project has increased the value of the more than 600-acre Miami suburb with four golf courses and a resort with more than 600 rooms to $1.5 billion from $350 million, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Meanwhile, Trump's publicly traded social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., has seen wild swings. The parent company of Truth Social, which reported a net loss of $401 million last year, added more than $4 billion to Trump's fortune in October. Today, even as the company seeks to move into finance and bitcoin, Trump's stake is worth $2 billion.

However, the craze for Trump-related crypto projects has provided the family with new avenues for profit.

The most notable of these is World Liberty Financial, a platform that sells its own tokens and issues a stablecoin called USD1, a cryptocurrency designed to be pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar. The Trump family has profited from the project through token sales, part of its stake in the project’s parent company, and its World Liberty Financial tokens.

As of March, World Liberty had sold $550 million worth of tokens. About $390 million of that went to the Trump family, Bloomberg calculated. The Trump family also owns 22.5 billion tokens, worth more than $2 billion based on the prices they changed hands in June. Because the tokens are not transferable, they are excluded from calculations of Trump’s net worth, although the company has said in recent weeks that could soon change.

The Trump family reduced its stake in World Liberty from 60% to 40% last month, according to details on the company’s website. It was not immediately clear who the buyer was or what the Trump family received from the divestment.

World Liberty also launched the stablecoin USD1. Abu Dhabi-based technology investment company MGX said it would use the token to invest $2 billion in cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which greatly increased the circulation of USD1. According to the Wall Street Journal, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has been seeking a presidential pardon after pleading guilty to violating US anti-money laundering laws. He currently serves as an advisor to World Liberty along with cryptocurrency industry leader Justin Sun and Bilal bin Saqib, chairman of the Pakistan Cryptocurrency Commission.

Bloomberg: How did the Trump family make $620 million in the cryptocurrency world?

 Donald Trump attends the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville. Image source: Bloomberg

According to Bloomberg calculations, World Liberty is valued at about $1.4 billion based on the market value of stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group Inc. and the circulation of USDC. Due to the limited adoption of USD1, Bloomberg did not include it in Trump's net worth, but its $2.2 billion circulation means that World Liberty may earn about $100 million from its reserves this year.

Another memecoin named after the president (TRUMP) was launched two days before his inauguration. When the price of TRUMP rises, the Trump family will benefit: Fight Fight Fight and CIC Digital, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, hold 80% of the TRUMP supply, some of which will be gradually unlocked and sold over three years. Memecoin has no underlying value and trades entirely based on market sentiment.

Trump’s memecoin, TRUMP, has been highly sought after for its ties to the current president’s family, and demand has soared following a contest in May that invited 220 of the largest TRUMP token holders to a private dinner at Trump’s golf club in Virginia, where they spoke. Sun was one of the guests, posting a selfie in black tie on his way to the event. Guests dined on filet mignon and seared halibut, while protesters outside held signs calling it a “scam fest.”

Memecoin valuation is difficult, usually because the creator of the token holds the vast majority of the supply, and once it is sold, the market will crash. Cryptocurrency risk modeling firm Gauntlet found that a digital wallet associated with the creation of Memecoin TRUMP holds nearly 17 million TRUMP tokens.

These wallets additionally transferred approximately 17 million TRUMP tokens to cryptocurrency exchanges.

Bloomberg: How did the Trump family make $620 million in the cryptocurrency world?

 Activists from the group Our Revolution held a demonstration outside the Trump National Golf Course in Sterling, Virginia, on May 22. Trump's private dinner was held there that day and 220 of the largest holders of TRUMP tokens were invited. Image source: Associated Press

The Trump Organization holds 40% of the total supply of TRUMP tokens, the same percentage as its disclosed holdings in World Liberty Financial. According to Bloomberg calculations, after applying a large liquidity discount and accounting for nearly $300 million in trading and sales gains, Trump's Memecoin investment is worth about $150 million, not including the 800 million tokens that will be unlocked over the next three years starting later this month. At current prices, these 800 million tokens are worth more than $7 billion.

Although World Liberty Financial and TRUMP were originally two separate projects, they now intersect in at least one way: Eric Trump revealed that World Liberty Financial plans to hoard a large number of TRUMP tokens as the company's crypto asset reserves.

In addition, the Trump family has another trump card in the field of cryptocurrency.

American Bitcoin, an entity spun off from a small investment bank owned by Trump, is planning to become a public company, which will add another fortune from cryptocurrency to the Trump family. When the predecessor of American Bitcoin was established in February this year, a press release stated that it would focus on artificial intelligence infrastructure and data centers. By March, the company had a new strategy, shifting to the cryptocurrency field and changing its name.

Bitcoin miner Hut 8 Corp. agreed to acquire a majority stake in American Bitcoin and transfer nearly all of its cryptocurrency mining equipment. Hut 8 Corp. plans to merge with Nasdaq-listed low-cap company Gryphon Digital Mining Inc. to take the entire company public. The Trump family and its partners hold a 20% stake in American Bitcoin.

Bloomberg calculates that Gryphon’s share price values the new venture at more than $3 billion, a figure that seems high by any traditional valuation standard, given that the new company’s primary asset will be the bitcoin mining equipment provided by Hut 8, which has a book value of about $120 million.

But, like many of the assets and businesses that make up Trump’s new wealth, fundamentals are often beside the point.

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Author: Foresight News

This article represents the views of PANews columnist and does not represent PANews' position or legal liability.

The article and opinions do not constitute investment advice

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