Trump family adds $1.7 billion of crypto wealth in span of weeks

NEW YORK - It took just a few eventful weeks for US President Donald Trump’s family to rack up about US$1.3 billion (S$1.7 billion) from two crypto ventures, each less than a year old.

The haul from crypto firm World Liberty Financial and separate mining operation American Bitcoin shows how still-nascent projects are already translating into tangible wealth for the first family. The sums rival the values of long-held golf and resort properties that had been synonymous with the Trumps, whose fortune now stands at US$7.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. 

The President’s two eldest sons, Mr Donald Trump Jr and Mr Eric Trump, still share the role of executive vice-president at the Trump Organisation, but are increasingly the faces of the family’s growing crypto portfolio.

World Liberty, which they co-founded in 2024 along with the President’s youngest son, Barron, reached a key milestone on Sept 1, opening up the ability for customers to trade its eponymous token. In August, it clinched a lucrative deal with a public company to stockpile the asset. 

Together, those developments added about US$670 million to the Trumps’ net worth, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index, which now treats it as a family fortune. Bloomberg’s calculation excludes roughly US$4 billion worth of tokens owned by the Trumps that remain locked for now.

The blitz suggests a new reality is setting in for the first family: The properties most closely associated with them, like Trump Tower on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue and even the palm-fringed Mar-a-Lago resort, aren’t the fastest path to new wealth. And even for a family that’s long attached its name to everything from steaks to vodka, the speed and magnitude of their crypto gains are unlike anything they’ve done before.

The Trumps have new ideas in progress, too. Mr Warren Hui, co-founder of Soul Ventures, which invested in Alt5 Sigma, the public company that started buying World Liberty tokens last month, said the crypto company’s founders recently suggested they may start “tokenising” real estate assets – creating a digital proxy for something that exists in the physical world. Mr Eric Trump was among the group pitching the idea, he added.

World Liberty and American Bitcoin are now operating at the intersection of crypto and public markets. While crypto enthusiasts once sought an alternative to traditional finance, increasingly they’re using publicly listed vehicles to bolster the value of their tokens. It is a riff on a concept crypto celebrity Michael Saylor pioneered and a way to create a more steady source of demand for volatile virtual assets.

Under earlier regulatory regimes, the crypto industry was under greater scrutiny. The Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden administration cracked down on crypto exchanges for selling unregistered securities, and sued some of the best known companies, including Coinbase Global and Kraken. Under Mr Trump, who appointed friendlier regulators and promised to turn the US into the “crypto capital of the world,” those high-profile cases were dropped. 

In response to criticism over the potential for conflicts of interest, given the family’s involvement in virtual assets, Mr Trump’s sons have said their businesses are distinct from the government. 

Still, during the Bitcoin Asia conference at the end of August, Mr Eric Trump said he had urged his father to address Bitcoin enthusiasts while campaigning in Nashville in 2024.

“Buy right now,” he told the Bitcoin Asia audience in Hong Kong. “Buy this second.” He followed up with a mention of Mr Saylor’s entreaty to “sell a kidney if you must, but keep the Bitcoin”. BLOOMBERG