The president has no financial or other conflicts of interest, according to the White House.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to the question, “Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest,” when asked about the relationship between her boss’s business empire and his day job. This is not the first time that Question has been asked about this matter.
Now think about President Trump’s financial interests: he stands to gain a lot from the cryptocurrency sector that he is fostering through his policies.
Memecoins titled after Trump and his wife have been created. A stablecoin and digital tokens are part of the business he co-founded with his kids and his chief diplomatic negotiator. His social networking platform’s parent publicly listed corporation is repositioning itself to acquire cryptocurrency and operate as a digital asset treasury.
Trump has promised to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet,” and he and his family are more reliant on cryptocurrencies for their riches.
There’s no hiding the fact that the president seems to be pocketing a tidy sum from all of this, with hundreds of millions in fees accruing while he’s in office and maybe billions more in the future.
Last year, the business World Liberty Financial was co-founded by Trump, his chief negotiator for the Middle East and Ukraine, Steve Witkoff, and their sons. Its new digital asset, the WLFI token, which allows traders a say in corporate governance matters, became live for trading this week. Tokens are most heavily held by the Trump family.
Binance, the cryptocurrency company whose CEO is presently seeking clemency, hosts WLFI.
â–º World Liberty Financial also offers USD1, a stablecoin linked to the US dollar, which is promoted as a superior currency that facilitates international transfers inside the global financial system.
While Trump and Witkoff are now officially designated as “emeritus” cofounders of World Liberty Financial, their sons are actively involved in marketing it globally. An example would be last month’s trip to Asia by Eric Trump, who promoted cryptocurrency.
On Wednesday morning, a bitcoin mining venture that is associated with Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric went public on the Nasdaq. This listing, according to Forbes, made Eric Trump a paper billionaire.
Trump’s media conglomerate, whose stock ticker is DJT (the president’s initials), has amassed a bitcoin portfolio worth several billion dollars and declared intentions to transform into a digital asset treasury, investing billions in Cronos, an additional cryptocurrency.
I mean, why not?
Why not just run their company as usual, Donald Trump Jr. said earlier this year, because the Trumps will always be accused of wrongdoing.
“At this conference in Qatar, we will not go to such extremes as to permanently impede our operations, to isolate ourselves in a metaphorical padded room,” he stated. “We’re simply going to engage in the game.”
Among the several crypto-related events, the trade of the WFLI token by World Liberty Financial may stand out the most. The wealth that families gained when stablecoin started trading this week is now just on paper since they can’t exchange their stashes of the cryptocurrency.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the president’s fortune would be more concentrated in cryptocurrency than in real estate, with an estimated $5 billion in on-paper riches. However, the value of the coin, which is meant to be pegged to the US dollar, declined after it began trading.
Investing in these goods is not necessary.
The stock value of Trump’s media firm has dropped by over 50% since last year’s election. The president is a businessman, and the fact that he stands to gain financially from his actions raises ethical concerns.
Concerns that foreign governments and individuals may try to influence Trump through his business dealings have been voiced by ethics experts and government watchdogs for quite some time.
Will this be upheld in court?
Emoluments, or payments from foreign governments, are forbidden to US officials under the Constitution. However, this matter has never been subject to significant litigation. Trump had recently left office when the Supreme Court had the chance to hear an emoluments lawsuit involving these properties during his first term, but it passed on the matter.
The concerns of emoluments remain unchanged under Trump 2.0, but the quantities are far bigger. Maybe an investment group sponsored by the Emiratis will invest $2 billion in Binance using Trump’s stablecoin. Evidently, crypto wasn’t on the minds of the framers of the Constitution.
Crypto is only one of Trump’s many economic interests. Regarding real estate, the Trump Organization is currently involved in projects all over the globe, notably in Asia and the Middle East, which is a change from Trump’s first term.
Unlike abstract ideas, real land is not hard to put your hands on. People who invest in cryptocurrencies may still find them puzzling. Assuming the Trumps are able to exchange WLFI tokens, their worth is anybody’s guess.
A financial firm that was laser-focused on its own cryptocurrency project
Alt5 Sigma, a publicly listed company, intends to acquire $1.5 billion worth of shares in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), which was co-founded by Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff in addition to their dads.
According to the Wall Street Journal, they could have gotten $500 million by purchasing their own digital asset through Alt5 Sigma.
Observe the costs
Even if the firm isn’t considered a top digital asset, President Trump stands to gain financially from it. According to Reuters, it is unclear if the more than $57 million he disclosed in his personal financial declarations signed on June 13 pertains to revenue from World Liberty Financial for this year or not. According to Reuters’ calculations using the financial disclosures from June, the Trumps have taken almost $400 million from World Liberty Financial.
The Trump family, however, has far-reaching crypto holdings.
The $Trump memecoin, which carries his name, has lost so much value that it is now considered a joke. The memecoin has generated over $320 million in fees for the president, as reported by Reuters and the financial declaration, while its primary purpose is to bolster Trump’s popularity.
Trump coins: who buys them?
Foreign nationals make up a sizable portion of memecoin’s biggest investors. At a dinner hosted by the president at his Virginia golf club in May, they were feted.
However, the identity of the investors in these items remains a mystery. Thanks to Zach Witkoff’s announcement, we are aware that the stablecoin of World Liberty Financials has the support of the Emiratis. Not because the White House published a list, but because certain memecoin owners admitted to attending the meal and others were exposed by internet detective work, we know which overseas investors attended dinner with Trump. $Melania is a distinct memecoin that helps out the president’s family.
The $Trump coin’s prominent investor, Justin Sun, a crypto tycoon of Chinese descent, is one such prominent memecoin investor. Although memecoins are useless, the fact that he put so much money in them likely makes him feel good about his decision, because he was facing civil fraud charges in the US until Trump won office. Sun has transitioned from investor to adviser to World Liberty.
‘Crypto capital.’
A strategic crypto reserve, similar to the US’s strategic oil and gold reserves, is being ordered to be created by President Trump, further demonstrating the US government’s support for crypto.
Through the SEC and other authorities, he has also signaled to investors that they should not fear government meddling during his presidency.
Crypto: What is the public’s opinion in the US?
As pointed out by Harry Enten of HEADLINESFOREVER, 17% of US investors with $10,000 or more invested are now in crypto, a significant increase from the 2% who reported owning cryptocurrency in 2018, according to Gallup. Those who reported owning cryptocurrencies were more likely to be men, college graduates, and conservatives (those under 50 years old). However, according to Gallup, 64 percent of investors still don’t plan to put money into bitcoin.
Trump’s participation, as pointed out by Enten, reflects a widening partisan gap.
In 2021, over half of Democrats and Republicans respectively viewed crypto investments as a “high risk,” according to a CNBC/SurveyMonkey survey. Skepticism among Democrats has increased over the years; presently, around two-thirds have told Gallup pollsters it is extremely hazardous. But among Republicans, the percentage who think it poses a significant threat is nearly same.