Crypto Craze Provides Trump With Exactly What He Needs—Cash #CriptoNews

Donald Trump released a digital meme on Friday, sparking a trading frenzy that led to reports that he had instantly added tens of billions of dollars to his fortune. Nonsense. Those numbers are based on theoretical prices for crypto assets that Trump cannot sell right now, which is why Forbes values them at zero, in keeping with our methodology of generally excluding unsellable assets from net worth tallies. The crypto that Trump has already offloaded, however, did bolster his fortune, adding hundreds of millions of dollars in liquid assets to his balance sheet.

How did that happen? Consider World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that, over the last few days, boosted the incoming president’s cash pile by an estimated $290 million. World Liberty Financial generates revenue by selling tokens. Its “gold paper”—a Trump-ified version of a white paper—explains that these tokens cannot currently be resold and promise no share of future profits, offering little to people who like to make money on their investments. The document indicates that the first $30 million of proceeds stay in the project, which aims to speed up finance and bring crypto to the masses. After setting aside that initial pile of cash, however, 75% apparently goes to Trump’s company, and 25% gets split between other insiders, including the family of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s incoming special envoy to the Middle East.

Trump unveiled World Liberty Financial in August, but sales started with a dud. By Nov. 2, customers had only purchased an estimated $15 million worth of tokens—not enough to fully fund the project, let alone kick off a cut of the revenue to Trump. But a few weeks after the Nov. 5 election, a crypto entrepreneur named Justin Sun, who has been battling the Securities and Exchange Commission over accusations of unregistered crypto sales and fraudulent market manipulation, announced that he dumped $30 million into the project, ensuring that Trump would walk away with some money. Sales trickled in over the ensuing weeks, reaching an estimated $94 million by this Saturday, implying a $48 million take for Trump’s entity.

Then things went wild. At 9:18 p.m. Eastern time Sunday, World Liberty Financial announced that it had gotten rid of all the coins that it initially set out to sell last year, apparently raking in $300 million. An estimated $206 million of the sales came over a 29-hour stretch in the leadup to the inauguration. Trump’s cut by that point: about $200 million, according to Forbes’ calculations. He did not stop there. World Liberty Financial then revealed a new supply of tokens for sale, jacking the price for each from one-and-a-half cents to five cents. By Tuesday evening, the project had hauled in another $117 million or so, with an estimated $88 million headed to Trump’s company, bringing his total to roughly $290 million—from just one of his crypto ventures.

In addition to World Liberty Financial, the president sells a digital meme named $TRUMP, which he announced Friday, just in time to benefit from some inaugural buzz. The $TRUMP meme doesn’t even pretend to have a financial purpose—its official site tells buyers to “celebrate our win and have fun!” while warning them that they are not purchasing an investment opportunity. The pay structure underpinning $TRUMP is murky—but potentially even more lucrative for the president than World Liberty Financial. Through a company named CIC Digital LLC, Trump teamed up with another business named Fight Fight Fight LLC and released 200 million memes, priced Wednesday morning at about $43 apiece. Purchasers appear to get some sort of digital card.

There are still lots of unknowns, including the average price at which the president and his team sold their batch of $TRUMP, as well as the ownership split between his company and Fight Fight Fight LLC, making it impossible to calculate exactly how much Trump has taken in from the bonanza. Representatives for Trump’s real estate business and crypto ventures did not respond to requests for comment. The billionaire blasted out news of the sale at 9 p.m. on Friday, and according to CoinMarketCap, $TRUMP was trading at about $7 by 11 p.m., before peaking above $70 on Sunday. If the president’s company held even 50% of the venture and sold all 200 million tokens for an average of $7, he could have landed a $700 million windfall—on top of the estimated $290 million from World Liberty Financial. (All of this is before deducting any taxes he may owe.)

It’s something of a crowning achievement for Trump, who spent the last four years rewriting the playbook for how to make money from politics. He did what previous former presidents did—sold books and gave speeches—but he also leveraged his following in new ways, going public with the Trump Media and Technology Group, which created a Twitter knockoff that did not attract many users but nonetheless managed to excite investors. Shares of that venture soared as soon as they hit the market, adding billions of dollars to Trump’s net worth. He struggled to convert that equity into cash, though. Even after a lockup expired, Trump sold zero shares, perhaps concerned that doing so would tank the stock price and erase billions from his net worth.

His crypto ventures are the antidote, offering liquidity at the outset—regardless of whether the values eventually collapse. Trump says he plans to release another 800 million $TRUMP memes over the course of his second term.

Cash is critical to the president. Before the crypto mania, he had an estimated $413 million on his balance sheet, alongside more than $500 million of legal liabilities. While he appeals the cases that created those liabilities—two libel suits and a fraud case—interest continues to accrue, pushing Trump’s potential payout closer to $600 million. Such numbers might have worried him in the past. Two days after reclaiming the White House, however, his second term is already proving more lucrative than any in American history—eliminating all cause for concern.

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