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October 28, 2025Cryptopolitan logoCryptopolitan

Trump family earns nearly $1B from crypto ventures as token sales surge

The Trump family’s newest money engine is not real estate, hotels, or golf ￰0￱ is ￰1￱ the money has been flowing fast, according to a Reuters “internal investigation.” In the first half of this year alone, the Trump Organization pulled in $864 million, up from $51 million the year ￰2￱ than 90% of that came from crypto ventures tied to the ￰3￱ core piece is World Liberty Financial, a project that launched in September 2024 but still has not produced the peer‑to‑peer finance platform it ￰4￱ without a finished system, token sales and related ventures have already pushed the family’s crypto earnings toward $1 billion. A key moment came in May, when Eric Trump traveled to Dubai to meet potential ￰5￱ the sidelines of a crypto conference, he met with Guren “Bobby” Zhou, a Chinese ￰6￱ pushed the idea that traditional banks are inefficient and that World Liberty would represent the “future of finance” in ￰7￱ pitch required a minimum $20 million investment in WLFI governance ￰8￱ in the room later described the underlying technology as “rudimentary.” At that time, the business had no working ￰9￱ still does ￰10￱ buyers increase token volume Despite that, the pitch ￰11￱ June 26, a group called Aqua1 Foundation, claiming ties to the United Arab Emirates, agreed to buy $100 million worth of WLFI ￰12￱ was the largest purchase of the token at that time.

Zhou, who was part of the Dubai meeting, has since been linked in ￰13￱ to a money laundering investigation and has been involved in civil court judgments in China over unpaid loans totaling 19.4 million ￰14￱ of the legal filings stated that he was tried in absentia after failing to ￰15￱ say the attraction for some buyers is less about technology. “These people are not pouring money into coffers of the Trump family business because of the brothers’ ￰16￱ are doing it because they want freedom from legal constraints and impunity that only the president can deliver,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor and government ethics ￰17￱ addition to Aqua1, a Nasdaq‑listed blockchain services company called Alt5 Sigma raised $750 million to buy 7.5% of all WLFI tokens before they were allowed to ￰18￱ filings indicate nearly all of that money went directly to buy tokens from World ￰19￱ the math in those filings, the Trumps gained around $500 million from that single ￰20￱ sales reshape family income Reuters’ examination of wallet data found that 36 of the 50 largest WLFI token wallets are likely controlled by overseas buyers, holding around $804 million in ￰21￱ four were linked to ￰22￱ of those U.

S. wallets, holding $781 million, belonged to Alt5 ￰23￱ wallet worth $35 million belonged to a World Liberty security ￰24￱ remaining 10 wallets could not be identified as foreign or ￰25￱ January to June, $463 million of the Trump crypto cash came from WLFI token ￰26￱ $336 million came from sales of the $TRUMP meme ￰27￱ around the meme coin carry more uncertainty due to limited ￰28￱ Liberty promotes future products, including a crypto deposit app, a borrowing service, and a stablecoin called USD1, which is issued by another company that gives World Liberty a share of ￰29￱ compared to market‑leading stablecoins, USD1’s circulation remains ￰30￱ token holders can vote on limited governance issues, but they cannot distribute profits to themselves, which sets the platform apart from others in the same ￰31￱ WLFI began exchange trading on September 1, the price rose from $0.31 to $0.46 before dropping about 65% within three ￰32￱ currently trades at about $0.14.

Still, token sales ￰33￱ the money continues to flow. Don’t just read crypto ￰34￱ ￰35￱ to our newsletter. It's free .

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