Donald Trump, who’s repeatedly criticized Hunter Biden for perceived conflicts of interest, has unleashed his three sons on the cryptocurrency industry to participate with unprecedented breadth and financial entanglement.
All three of Trump’s sons are tied to and profiting from the industry as a whole, with Donald Jr. and Eric taking the lion’s share of positions while Barron finishes his education.
Protos has reviewed public reporting in an attempt to determine the extent of their involvement across the space.
World Liberty Financial
Donald Jr., Eric, and Barron are all listed as co-founders of World Liberty Financial (they were all listed previously as Web3 ambassadors), the firm that self-describes as “where DeFi meets TradFi.”
World Liberty Financial will have several key lines of business including DeFi lending through Aave, owning other cryptocurrencies, and operating the USD1 stablecoin.
However, the Aave lending has yet to launch, despite a governance vote passing almost exactly nine months ago to approve the launch of the lending market.
Read more: World Liberty Financial announces USD1 without governance vote
Despite the slowness of implementing this market, World Liberty has been able to jet ahead on various other projects, including launching the USD1 stablecoin.
This stablecoin, launched without even consulting with governance token holders, has quickly reached multi-billion dollar status, thanks almost entirely to its utility in facilitating the MGX investment in Binance.
This represents $2 billion of the coin’s total $2.6 billion market capitalization.
World Liberty Financial has also been willing to use its funds to start investing in a variety of other tokens, reportedly including arrangements where it would invest in tokens related to those that were willing to invest in World Liberty.
We saw, for example, World Liberty invest in Justin Sun-founded TRON and Sun-advised Wrapped Bitcoin following Sun’s investment in the project.
All of these investments have also been made without consulting with governance token holders.
Read more: Trump-endorsed World Liberty Financial buys Justin Sun tokens
A dispute with the $TRUMP memecoin team also revealed that the World Liberty team is working on its own crypto wallet, though this product has yet to launch and details are scant.
As of now, governance token holders haven’t been consulted on whether or not they believe World Liberty should launch this wallet.
World Liberty has repeatedly changed the description on its website of how the Trump family might profit from this enterprise, but the current disclaimer notes:
“DT Marks DEFI LLC, an entity affiliated with Donald J. Trump and certain of his family members, owns approximately 38% of the equity interests in WLF Holdco LLC, which holds the only membership interest in World Liberty Financial, Inc., a Delaware non-stock corporation and which is developing the WLF protocol and operates the WLF governance platform.
“DT Marks DEFI LLC, along with certain family members of Donald J. Trump, also holds 22.5 billion $WLFI tokens, and DT Marks DEFI LLC is entitled to receive fees from World Liberty Financial, Inc. pursuant to a service agreement, equal to 75% of $WLFI token sale proceeds after deduction of agreed reserves, expenses and other amounts.”
ALT5 Sigma
ALT5 Sigma is a crypto treasury firm that has partnered with World Liberty Financial.
This partnership involved World Liberty Financial purchasing a large amount of its stock in exchange for the World Liberty WLFI token.
The original Securities and Exchange Commission filing claimed that Eric would be joining the board of directors, alongside another co-founder, Zach Witkoff, who was to become the chairman of the board, and Zak Folkman, who was to become a board observer.
A subsequent filing backtracked from this claim, instead stating that Eric and Folkman would both be board observers, while Witkoff would still be the chairman.
Folkman may now become a board member, pending shareholder approval.
$TRUMP
The Trump family has also been willing to embrace memecoins to benefit the family, including the eponymous $TRUMP memecoin.
This memecoin has been endorsed by Donald Jr. and Eric and seems to financially benefit the Trump Organization they lead.
World Liberty Financial has also added $TRUMP to its token portfolio.
Hut 8 and the American Bitcoin Corporation
Hut 8, the bitcoin (BTC) mining firm, Eric, and Donald Jr., have partnered to open American Bitcoin, a new BTC mining firm.
Both Eric and Donald Jr. have invested in this firm, and Eric has been named chief strategy officer.
Four-fifths of this firm is owned by Hut 8, and the firm performed a reverse merger in order to begin trading on NASDAQ.
Besides its mining business, American Bitcoin has also announced that it will serve as a treasury company, investing in BTC, and hopes that investors provide a premium to the stock price.
Prediction markets
Donald Jr., who’s quick to defend the Trump family’s business empire and its resultant conflicts of interest, has also made sure that he is an advisor to popular prediction markets, Kalshi and Polymarket.
Junior took his role at Kalshi first, and was named a “strategic advisor” to the project, which re-launched in the United States shortly before Trump’s second inauguration.
Axios has reported that this is a paid position.
Not content with only a single prediction market startup, Junior also invested in Polymarket through his venture capital firm 1789 Capital. He was also named on the company’s advisory board.
Polymarket is currently planning its United States re-launch.
1789 Capital
1789 Capital is the venture capital firm at which Junior is a partner.
The firm has received investment from Marc Andreessen, a prominent crypto investor and founding partner of Andreessen Horowitz, as well as the late Charlie Kirk, the founder of right-wing Turning Point USA.
This firm has invested in Rumble, Public Square Holdings, and X, as well as other MAGA-coded firms like “GrabAGun” (where Donald Jr. is also an advisor).
Rumble
Rumble is an alternative video-streaming site, largely targeted at those who’ve violated the terms of service for other platforms by their hateful behavior and content.
Junior hosts his Triggered podcast on this platform.
As mentioned, Junior’s 1789 Capital has invested in Rumble, and it’s not the only crypto firm to do so, as Tether has also invested.
Shortly after Trump’s election last year, Rumble announced that it was adopting a BTC treasury strategy that gave company leadership the latitude to acquire a large quantity of BTC.
Public Square Holdings
1789 Capital has also invested in Public Square Holdings, a firm at which Donald Trump Jr. is on the board of directors.
Public Square Holdings announced on its most recent earnings call that it intends to become a crypto leader “by productizing much of the economic benefit that cryptocurrency brings to the table.”
It continued to note that “Caitlin Long joining the board” was important for this push into the crypto ecosystem.
Long is the founder and chief executive of Custodia Bank, a Wyoming based special purpose depository institution that focuses on the crypto industry, and has regularly crossed swords with the Federal Reserve over access to a Federal Reserve master account.
X
1789 Capital has also invested in xAI, the Elon Musk-led artificial intelligence firm which owns the X social media platform.
Musk had previously mentioned in text messages during the acquisition of the platform (then called Twitter) that he thought the future of X would be a social media company “that is based on a blockchain and includes payments.”
X executives have also claimed that the long-term plan is for X to become a financial everything app, though it’s not clear what role crypto will play in this transition.
Trump Media and Truth Social
Trump Media and Technology Group, the firm behind Truth Social, includes Junior as one of its directors, and Junior additionally controls a trust that holds his father’s shares in the firm.
The group has partnered with Crypto.com to launch a crypto treasury firm focused on the CRO token issued by the exchange.
This firm intends to go public via a special purpose acquisition company deal.
Read more: Every Trump family memecoin has lost money
Additionally, the deal involved Trump Media purchasing over $100 million worth of CRO for its own balance sheet, and Crypto.com has claimed that it intends to purchase $50 million worth of equity in Trump Media.
Additionally, Trump Media has filed for a crypto focused exchange traded fund (ETF) that would include BTC, ether (ETH), solana (SOL), and CRO.
Thumzup
Thumzup Media is a crypto treasury firm that has invested in ETH, SOL, XRP, dogecoin, and litecoin.
Junior briefly invested in this firm, before pretty quickly selling his stake in the firm.
It appears that he was only an investor, and not an advisor or executive.
Metaplanet
Metaplanet, a Japanese BTC treasury firm, has named Eric Trump to its board of advisors.
Eric even took the stage at its most recent shareholder meeting where he compared the firm and its leadership to Strategy and Michael Saylor.
Before pivoting to owning BTC, Metaplanet operated hotels.
Broadly, Donald Jr., who once criticized Hunter Biden for accepting a board role with Burisma, and Eric who once claimed his father would use the Department of Justice to prosecute Biden for his role with Burisma, have taken advantage of the Trump name to diversify their holdings and influence across the crypto ecosystem.
