Donald Trump has been a loyal supporter of Bitcoin since returning to the White House — committing to make America the "cryptocurrency capital of the world." He appointed cryptocurrency-friendly regulators to the SEC, announced plans to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve fund, pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, and signed into law the groundbreaking GENIUS Act.
Last week, his administration also announced a 166-page roadmap outlining how the U.S. could lead in the adoption of digital assets.
But considering the former president previously stirred controversy by launching his own series of non-fungible tokens — not to mention an official meme coin — it can be said Trump isn't doing this out of goodwill. The policies he is promoting benefit his own business empire, although White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt continues to assert they do not present a conflict of interest.
Cryptonews analyzed the numbers to assess Trump's level of involvement in this rapidly growing industry, with the recent strong price increase of Bitcoin meaning that digital assets now account for a significant portion of his total net worth. It turns out this billionaire is dipping his hands into a lot of areas.
Data shows the president owns $430 million spread across numerous cryptocurrency wallets, while his stake in World Liberty Financial is worth $390 million. He also generates an estimated $315 million in revenue from $TRUMP — and earlier this year, he significantly drove up prices by hosting a special dinner for holders of the largest meme coin. In total, he earned $6.6 million from his NFT collection, featuring hundreds of digital artworks depicting him as a superhero, a rock star, and everything else.
But aside from that, there is another major business worth exploring: Trump Media & Technology Group. TMTG owns Truth Social, a knockoff version of X that the president uses to post. Trump is the majority shareholder of this company, which went public last year amid costly civil lawsuits. And as this illustration shows, the company has learned from Strategy by adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet.
TMTG currently has approximately 18,430 BTC in the bank, worth about $2.1 billion at the time of writing, but it can be said that this figure is somewhat slow compared to expectations. Michael Saylor began accumulating Bitcoin in August 2020, meaning his company has generated tens of billions of dollars in paper profits. When announcing this Bitcoin purchase last month, the CEO and chairman of Trump Media, Devin Nunes, stated:
"We are seriously implementing the publicly announced strategy and completing the Bitcoin treasury plan. These assets help ensure financial freedom for the Company, protect us from discrimination from financial institutions, and will create interaction with the utility tokens we plan to introduce across the Truth Social ecosystem."
But here's a rather astonishing statistic worth considering: Bitcoin now accounts for over 40% of this company's total market capitalization.
Bitcoin fund management companies have proven to be particularly popular on Wall Street in recent years — mainly because they allow ordinary investors and institutions to access these digital assets without needing to own them directly. Theoretically, the increase in the value of BTC should lead to rising stock prices, but this doesn't always happen.
The infographic above shows that the stock of Trump Media & Technology Group has consistently underperformed compared to Bitcoin.
While the largest cryptocurrency in the world has dropped 5% over the past week, TMTG plummeted 11%. Bitcoin is up 2.3% compared to a month ago, while Trump's stock is down 2.5% during the same period. The situation is even more serious when considering the six-month time frame. Bitcoin is up 10.6%, while TMTG shares have fallen sharply by 47%.
While all of this is happening, the cryptocurrency industry has emerged as one of the largest donors to MAGA Inc, a political action committee supporting Trump. Crypto.com, Blockchain.com, and the Winklevoss twins are just a few of the wealthy donors to this PAC.
Democratic members of the House Financial Services Committee have expressed their views on Trump's cryptocurrency activities:
"Trump didn't just get lucky in the cryptocurrency sector; he rewrote the rules, profiting from the chaos he helped create. He cut oversight, inflated risky tokens, and added billions to projects that left ordinary investors in the dark. This is not innovation. This is not decentralization. This is corruption — rebranded as cryptocurrency."
