Trump’s Profiteering Hits $4 Billion
In September, the company took its shares public, capitalizing in another way on the cachet of the Trump name. American Bitcoin has merged with a penny stock Bitcoin miner to go public without the cost – or scrutiny – of an initial public offering. And as expected, the stock market priced the company much higher, in part because it owns a bitcoin stock. The brothers’ stake now stands at about two hundred million dollars. One caveat: Eric Trump, as a large and active investor in US Bitcoin, must report any stock sales, which could trigger a sell-off. So it seems excessive to add all of this to the ledger of presidential benefits. I will only add the approximate value of Donald Trump Jr.’s stake: a hundred million dollars.
The figure in August: $3.4 billion
Additional profit: $100 million
New total: $3.5 billion
WORLD LIBERTY FINANCIAL, BINANCE AND PAKISTAN
The Trumps have made even more money since August through World Liberty Financial, a digital finance startup with strong ties to the family. Its website lists the president as “co-founder emeritus” and displays his photograph prominently; Eric, Donald, Jr. and Barron Trump are all listed as co-founders. Steven Witkoff, the president’s old friend and diplomatic envoy, is also listed as co-founder emeritus, and his son Zach is CEO.
In May, World Liberty began selling a form of crypto known as a stablecoin. Unlike digital currencies such as bitcoin, which rise and fall in price, a stablecoin is meant to hold a fixed dollar value. Before July, when President Trump signed the first legislation regulating stablecoin, some of the most well-known examples, such as TerraUSD, had been revealed to be Ponzi schemes. (In December, a New York court sentenced the co-founder of TerraUSD to fifteen years in prison.) But World Liberty promised that its stablecoin, USD1, would always be worth exactly one dollar. Buyers can transfer 1 USD to transfer money or make payments, and any holder can exchange 1 USD for dollars. In the meantime, as $1 dollars circulate, World Liberty invests the cash it holds in U.S. Treasury bonds, the same way a savings bank might invest its deposits. At current interest rates, World Liberty can expect to earn more than four percent per year on the volume of $1 in circulation.
Last spring, a company owned by the rulers of the United Arab Emirates purchased $2 billion worth of $1. The transaction sparked concern over the appearance of a gain as the UAE simultaneously sought approval from the Trump administration to acquire sensitive U.S. artificial intelligence technology. (President Trump quickly granted this approval.) The Emiratis immediately used the stablecoin to invest in Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, which has its own interest in influencing Trump. In 2023, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws, served a brief prison sentence, and agreed to stop running the company. At the time of the payment of two billion dollars in stablecoin by the United Arab Emirates, he asked Trump for forgiveness. Binance, as the holder of the stablecoin, can determine how long World Liberty will continue to earn four percent per year on that two billion dollars. In other words, Binance controls the profit that the Trumps will make from the sale of stablecoins worth two billion dollars. In October, Trump granted CZ’s request for a pardon. (David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty, told me that Binance cannot “exert control or influence over World Liberty Financial.”)
Binance is currently seeking to end federal oversight that was imposed when it was found guilty of violating anti-money laundering laws. Now the company is exploiting the Trumps’ stable profits in another way. On December 11, Binance removed its fees for certain crypto transactions if they were made in 1 USD. Then, on December 23, Binance started paid users of its platform to hold 1 USD: Binance announced that, for the next month, it will offer users a bonus equal to approximately 1.7 percent on up to fifty thousand dollars of holdings in 1 USD. If this rate of return were annualized, it would yield a staggering twenty percent return. And on January 23, Binance announced a combination of new gifts for 1 USD holders that roughly expanded this offer. Many users have jumped on these opportunities. In the months preceding Binance’s maneuvers, the total volume of 1 USD in circulation had remained stable at around two billion dollars. On December 25, shortly after Binance announced its first giveaway, World Liberty announced that USD1 volume had surpassed three billion dollars. It now stands at around five billion, and most of this expansion appears to have taken place on the Binance platform.
