Trump National Doral won approval in January to build about 1500 luxury condos on the property, a longstanding goal of the family that required extensive outreach to the community. That elevates the value of the more than 600-acre property on Miami’s outskirts, home to four golf courses and a more than 600-room resort, to $US1.5 billion from $US350 million previously, according to Bloomberg calculations.
Meanwhile, the wild swings in Trump Media & Technology Group, the president’s publicly traded social-media company, has shown just how quickly assets untethered to fundamentals can lose their luster. The parent company of Truth Social, which reported a net loss of $US401 million last year, added more than $US4 billion to Trump’s fortune in October. These days his stake is worth $US2 billion, even as the firm attempts to pivot into finance and Bitcoin.
Ivanka Trump with Jared Kushner (centre) flanked by Eric Trump (left) and Donald Trump Jr. The Trump family fortune is being increasingly tied to crypto.Credit: AP
The blitz of Trump-linked crypto projects, however, offer new avenues for the family to profit.
Among the most prominent of those is World Liberty Financial, a platform that sells its own branded token and issues a stablecoin called USD1 — a virtual currency meant to mirror the value of a US dollar. The Trump family earns money from the project through token sales, by owning a portion of the project’s parent company and by holding its World Liberty-branded tokens.
By March, World Liberty sold tokens worth $US550 million. About $US390 million of that goes to the Trump family, according to Bloomberg calculations. The Trump family also owns 22.5 billion tokens, which would be worth more than $US2 billion based on the price at which the tokens changed hands in June. They are excluded from Trump’s net worth calculation because the tokens are meant to be non-transferrable, though in recent weeks the company has said that could soon change.
The Trump family last month reduced its stake in World Liberty to 40 per cent from 60 per cent, according to details on the company’s website. It’s unclear who the buyers were or what the family made from the divestment.
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World Liberty also launched a stablecoin, USD1, which got a major boost to its circulation when MGX, an Abu Dhabi-based technology investment firm, said it was using the token to make a $US2 billion investment in cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, who has been seeking a presidential pardon after pleading guilty to violating US anti-money laundering laws, according to a Wall Street Journal report, is serving as a World Liberty adviser, alongside crypto impresario Justin Sun and Bilal Bin Saqib, the head of Pakistan’s Crypto Council.
Applying the ratio of stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group’s market capitalisation to its USDC circulation would imply World Liberty was worth some $US1.4 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations. Bloomberg excludes the stablecoin from Trump’s net worth because it’s considered too speculative to value given its limited adoption. But its circulation of $US2.2 billion means its reserves are likely to earn roughly $US100 million this year for World Liberty.
A separate token with the president’s name launched on his inauguration weekend. The Trumps benefit when the price of the memecoin increases: Fight Fight Fight and Trump Organisation affiliate CIC Digital hold 80 per cent of the memecoin’s supply, with portions of that stake becoming available for sale over a three-year period. Memecoins have no underlying value, and trade based on sentiment.
The Trump memecoin, which has drummed up enthusiasm from its connection to the family of a sitting president, got an added demand boost after a contest in which the 220 largest holders were invited to a private dinner where Trump spoke in May. Sun was among the guests, and posted a selfie in his black tie attire en route to the Trump golf club in Virginia where the event took place. Guests dined on filet mignon and pan-seared halibut while protesters outside brandished signs calling it a “Grifter Gala.”
Memecoins are notoriously difficult to value, usually because creators own the vast majority of the supply and can’t sell their stash without crashing the market. Gauntlet, a crypto risk modelling firm, found that digital wallets associated with the creation of the memecoin own nearly 17 million tokens.
Roughly another 17 million Trump tokens were transferred to crypto exchanges by these wallets.
The Trump Organisation is credited with 40 per cent of the total, the same ownership stake as its disclosed position in World Liberty Financial. After applying a large liquidity discount and adding nearly $US300 million in trading and selling proceeds, Trump’s memecoin investment is worth roughly $US150 million, according to Bloomberg calculations. That excludes 800 million coins worth more than $US7 billion vesting over the next three years, beginning later this month.
‘I am incredibly proud of our wonderful company. We have never been stronger.’
Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organisation
Though World Liberty Financial and the Trump token began as two separate efforts, they’ve collided in at least one way: Eric Trump revealed plans for World Liberty Financial to amass a “substantial position” in the Trump memecoin for the company’s stockpile of virtual assets.
The Trump family also has a crypto wild card up its sleeve.
American Bitcoin — an entity spun out by a small Trump-affiliated investment bank — is planning to become a publicly traded company, which would add another stream of crypto wealth for the family. When its predecessor started in February, a press release said it would focus on AI infrastructure and data centers. By March, it had a new strategy, pivoting to crypto and changing its name.
Hut 8, a Bitcoin miner, agreed to take a majority stake in American Bitcoin, handing over nearly all of its cryptocurrency mining devices. The whole business will leap on to public markets in a planned merger with Gryphon Digital Mining, a Nasdaq-listed penny stock. The Trumps and their partners own 20 per cent of American Bitcoin.
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Gryphon’s shares are trading at a level valuing the new venture at more than $US3 billion, according to Bloomberg calculations. By just about any traditional measure, that figure appears far too high, given that its main asset will be the Bitcoin mining equipment that Hut 8 provided, with a book value of roughly $US120 million.
But, like with many of the assets and ventures that make up Trump’s new wealth, fundamental value is often besides the point.
Bloomberg
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