#TrumpBitcoinEmpire

Donald Trump at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference in Nashville. (Johnnie Izquierdo via Getty Images)

Since President Trump's election in November, the price of bitcoin has skyrocketed. On Election Day 2024, one bitcoin traded below $75,000. Last week, bitcoin reached an all-time high of over $123,000. (On Monday, it hovered around $118,000.)

This is not an accident. Trump has systematically used the power of the presidency to promote bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

On Monday, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), a publicly traded company majority-owned by Trump, announced that it had acquired $2 billion in bitcoin. Trump is turning a failing media company into a bitcoin holding company. TMTG, the parent company of Truth Social, lost over $185 million on just $3.6 million in revenue in 2024.

TMTG is mimicking a strategy pioneered by Microstrategy. The company, now known as Strategy, officially sells software and other technology services, but it is really in the business of buying bitcoin. (Strategy and similar bitcoin-focused companies are valued far above their actual bitcoin holdings, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.)