Trump's $942 million crypto windfall reshapes his fortune
But digging deeper into the figures reveals an unprecedented and unmistakable shift in how he and his family are buttressing their empire — and how much more quickly they stand to potentially profit from their fame, influence and power.
Whether it's putting their brand on real estate projects or attaching it to perfumes and mattresses, licensing deals have long been used by the Trump family to make money fast compared with the years of planning and execution needed in real estate development. But with crypto, the Trumps can turbocharge the monetisation of their name.
Combined with loosened constraints on foreign dealmaking in the second Trump administration, it has been a bonanza. Crypto ventures have added at least $US620 million ($942 million) to Donald Trump's fortune in the span of months, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which is valuing his family's earnings from projects like World Liberty Financial and the Trump memecoin for the first time.
The money made from an expanding lineup of virtual tokens and obscure companies deriving their value largely from their association with the president and his MAGA movement dwarfs the more than $US34 million the Trump Organisation reported taking in from real estate licensing deals last year.
'I am incredibly proud of our wonderful company,' said Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organisation. 'We have never been stronger.'
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While the president's assets are in a trust administered by Donald Trump Jr., he continues to personally benefit from the success of the Trump Organisation, and Bloomberg's wealth index rolls up the family's various interests to the patriarch. For now, many private ventures that Trump's children are engaged in haven't been included because the details of their financial interests couldn't be determined, including the private club Executive Branch in Washington, Japanese hotel company-turned-Bitcoin stockpiler Metaplanet, radio and podcasting outfit Salem Media, prediction-market startup Kalshi and online drug retailer BlinkRX.
For as much as Trump and his children are wading into crypto — Eric and Don Jr. have spoken, sometimes independently and sometimes together, at events in Abu Dhabi, Washington, Dubai and Las Vegas since December alone — one of the biggest boosts to his personal fortune has been a project close to home that was years in the making.
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