Former President Donald Trump still possesses as much as half a million dollars in cryptocurrency.
Key Details
- A recently released financial disclosure from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics shows that Trump owns between $250,000 and $500,000 in Ethereum.
- The revelation comes amid a larger disclosure of how Trump grossed roughly $1 billion from speaking fees, real estate, and online sales.
- The disclosure to the Federal Election Commission was necessary as part of his ongoing bid for the 2024 Presidential Election.
- The holdings came from selling 44,000 $99 Trump Digital Trading Card NFTs in December, netting $4.4 million for NFT INT LLC and $297,839 for Trump to use his image.
Why It’s Important
President Trump’s NFT collection was widely disregarded when it was launched last year. The collection came late in the game on the NFT market, and most of them lost their value relatively quickly as the overall NFT market declined. However, sales of the collection spiked 400% in April following Trump’s first indictment. A second round of NFTs in April also sold out.
Trump has generally spoken negatively about cryptocurrency. He tells Fox Business that he thinks crypto is “a very dangerous thing” and previously tweeted in April 2019, “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”
However, Trump remains a businessman and was not unwilling to jump into the crypto space for a payday. Trump’s aggressive fanbase bought all of the NFTs in both sales within both sales’ starts and continues to drive a significant merchandise industry of hats, clothing, flags, and other consumer goods.
As we previously reported, Trump remains the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential primaries. Despite facing a potential fourth upcoming indictment that could require going to trial at the height of the political campaign, FiveThirtyEight reports that 52.7% of Republicans find him the preferred candidate—followed by Ron DeSantis (14%), Vivek Ramaswamy (7.2%), and Mike Pence (6%).
