Cash News
Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure reveals that the former president — who once called Bitcoin a scam — now owns more than $1 million in cryptocurrency.
According to his filings, the Republican presidential nominee owns between $1 million and $5 million in Ethereum. Although that’s not a massive sum considering Trump’s other holdings and status, it’s surely going to be a plus for the crypto lobby he’s been looking to win over in recent months.
Tech executives and crypto leaders s have started to embrace the former president this election cycle, seeing Trump as a much friendlier face than President Joe Biden or presumptive Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohiois also a crypto-friendly leader who owns Bitcoin holdings that are valued at between $100,001 and $250,000, according to a financial disclosure filed earlier this week.
While speaking to a crowd of some 3,000 people at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Trump promised to fire Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler on his first day in office because of his opposition to cryptocurrency. Trump also promised to establish a strategic national Bitcoin reserve, reaffirmed his stance that the U.S. must emerge as a crypto capital and superpower in the world, and claimed Bitcoin may one day surpass the market cap of gold.
“This [Bitcoin] is the steel industry of 100 years ago,” he said.
Trump also made $7.15 million from his line of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, a unique digital asset that can take the form of art, videos, and other types of digital content stored on a blockchain network and traded using cryptocurrency as a means of exchange. In 2022, Trump jumped into the NFT market for the first time, launching a collection featuring images of him depicted as a superhero, astronaut, and cowboy.
Despite being a crypto-skeptic then, Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, launched NFT collections featuring Melania’s “cobalt blue eyes.” She was paid $330,609 in license fees for the sale of NFTs, according to the disclosure.
Last August, he launched his latest NFT collection — “MugShot,” focusing on the theme of his ongoing criminal indictments. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek in June, Trump touted the success of his NFTs and said he would release a fourth collection.
“I did it three times [and] I’m going to do another one, because the people want me to do another one,” Trump said. “It’s unbelievable spirit. Beautiful.”
—Vinamrata Chaturvedi contributed to this story