Ahead of his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump launched and promoted a new cryptocurrency venture, raising fresh ethical questions about his attempts to monetize the incoming administration’s deepening political ties to the industry.
Throughout the weekend, the project soared in value as Trump and his aides prepared to reenter the White House. As soon as Monday, Trump is expected to issue new policy directives that could loosen crypto regulation and send the price of bitcoin and other assets skyrocketing.
Trump’s new project is known as a meme coin, a highly volatile sort of token that crypto enthusiasts can buy and sell tied to an online trend or personality. In this case, it’s an image of Trump pumping his fist inspired by the assassination attempt in July. Dubbed $TRUMP, the incoming president fashioned the new offering as a way for his supporters to “celebrate everything we stand for.”
On paper, it may have generated potentially billions of dollars in wealth for the Trump business, just hours before he is set to begin a term in which he has promised to turn the United States into the “crypto capital of the planet,” as he told industry supporters at a major conference last year.
Buyers are receiving what essentially amounts to a digital playing card, the purchase of which is supposed to symbolize a show of support, not an investment opportunity or political donation, according to lengthy disclosures posted online.
But a digital firm affiliated with the Trump organization owns 80 percent of the supply, the project disclosed, and appears to collect a fee on sales. Trump has also promoted the project to his roughly 97 million followers on the social media site X, and on Sunday, he steered followers to a similar meme coin tied to incoming first lady Melania Trump.
By Sunday evening, the total value of the $TRUMP project had reached more than $67 billion, according to CoinMarketCap, which tracks crypto prices and computed the figure by estimating the total market capitalization if every coin were in circulation.
Two of the president-elect’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr., described the project this weekend as the “hottest digital meme on earth,” and they promised the Trump family’s separate crypto project — a new token and platform called World Liberty Financial — would be the “future of finance.”
Jordan Libowitz, a senior vice president at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington who studies crypto, said the coin reflected the extent to which Trump could seize on “every government lever in his reach to make money for himself.”
Norman Eisen, a former White House ethics adviser during the Obama administration, said that, out of all of Trump’s conflicts as a businessman turned president, this “may be the most profound.”
“He’s launching a major, new multibillion-dollar venture in the burgeoning crypto industry, where he has the most profound conflict of interest between [what] he’s seeking to gain and his duties to regulate that industry — which now includes himself,” Eisen said. “This may represent the single worst conflict of interest in the modern history of the presidency.”
Eisen also noted that foreign governments could buy into the meme coin, raising its value and enriching Trump’s wealth, thereby violating the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution.
“Cryptocurrency should thrive but should also be appropriately regulated, and when it is not, [it] could be abused as a conduit for money laundering, tax evasion and terrorist financing,” Eisen warned.
A spokesman for the Trump transition did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization also did not immediately respond.
The venture underscored Trump’s sharp turn from crypto skeptic to supporter as he looks to court the industry’s generous political donations and continued favor entering his second stint in the White House.
Years after decrying crypto as a “scam,” Trump has tried to fashion himself as the first crypto president, and he has turned to aides who boast deep ties to the highly volatile industry.
Those advisers include David Sacks, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist set to guide Trump on crypto policy in the White House, and Paul Atkins, a former consultant to crypto companies whom the president has nominated to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, a powerful financial watchdog. Some of Trump’s advisers during the transition process, meanwhile, are closely tied to Marc Andreessen and his venture firm, which has extensive investments in crypto.
Andreessen and other crypto magnates — including Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the founders of the trading platform Gemini — donated generously to Trump and affiliated groups during the 2024 campaign as they looked to arrest years of withering scrutiny under outgoing President Joe Biden.
But the fruits of their labor could become apparent soon after Trump enters office: He is expected to create a new council — consisting in part of crypto executives — to guide his administration, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his plans.
Trump has also explored executive orders that would streamline federal crypto regulation, such as by tasking agencies to study and remove legal barriers to the industry or clarifying the exact oversight roles of two federal financial regulators, the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the people said. And the president’s team has spoken with lawmakers and experts about his controversial idea to maintain a federal stockpile of bitcoin, The Washington Post previously reported.
Trump and his family have lent their names and support to World Liberty Financial, which aims to offer crypto lending, though they do not appear to be officers at the company.
But the projects have only resurfaced familiar questions about Trump’s commingling of government and business, and the extent to which political actors might seek to curry favor by investing in his growing real estate and tech enterprises. The stakes became apparent only weeks after the election, when Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun purchased $30 million in tokens from World Liberty Financial. Sun is under investigation by the SEC.
The president-elect has also sold NFTs — non-fungible tokens — featuring amateurish images of him playing golf, posing as an astronaut or surrounded by bars of gold.
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