The Trump Family Seriously Invested in Cryptocurrency... Token Company Sales Surpass 1.4 Trillion Won

Reportedly Plans to Supply an Additional 5 Billion Tokens

President Donald Trump is dancing with Mrs. Melania at the inauguration ceremony on the 20th (local time). Photo by AP

A cryptocurrency venture associated with the family of U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly sold tokens (blockchain-based assets) worth over $1 billion (about 1.4 trillion KRW) since its establishment in October last year.

The UK Financial Times (FT) reported on the 20th (local time) that "World Liberty Financial (WLF), involving President Trump and his sons, sold 21 billion tokens on that day, surpassing its initial goal of selling 20 billion tokens worth $1 billion at the time of establishment." It also stated that WLF plans to supply an additional 5 billion tokens due to market demand and interest.

WLF is known not to have released specific plans regarding this yet. Token holders have only limited voting rights without economic rights. Additionally, they cannot trade or resell the tokens back to WLF.

However, recent demand for WLF tokens is understood to have increased significantly compared to the launch period. Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun revealed that he invested an additional $45 million (about 64.7 billion KRW) in WLF, increasing the total scale to $75 million (about 107.8 billion KRW).

Last year, he won an auction for the installation art piece "Banana taped to the wall" for $6.2 million (865 million KRW) and performed an act of eating it. He is currently sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for fraud and securities law violations.

Meanwhile, there are also speculations that President Trump has amassed substantial wealth through issuing his own meme coin. Ahead of his inauguration, on the 17th of this month, Trump announced via his social media account that he would issue his own meme coin called "Official Trump." A meme coin named after his wife, Melania Trump, was released shortly after.

The Trump meme coin price once exceeded $75 after its launch. According to CoinMarketCap, as of 11:50 AM KST on the 21st, the Trump meme coin was trading at $33.70, down 24.27% from 24 hours earlier. Its market capitalization is $6.73 billion (about 9.7 trillion KRW), ranking 25th among all cryptocurrencies. According to the Trump meme coin’s official website, 80% of the coin supply is held by two affiliates of the Trump Organization, where his second son Eric serves as executive vice president (FightFightFight and CIC Digital).

Since a significant portion of the profits from the coin price increase accrues to the Trump Organization, concerns about conflicts of interest have been raised. The UK daily Telegraph reported that it is unclear how much of the coin President Trump personally holds. It estimated that when the coin price was $53.65, the valuation of the Trump Organization’s holdings was $42.9 billion (about 61.7 trillion KRW), and if considered as his personal assets, his net worth would be around $50.1 billion (about 72 trillion KRW). It added that this would rank him 33rd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.