The President's Crypto Empire gm Bankless Nation,
Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump has reshaped crypto's political profile as crypto has reshaped his own net worth. Today's Issue ⬇️ - ☀️ Need to Know: Ether Machine
A new treasury kingpin emerges. - 🗣️ Analysis: Trump's Crypto Empire
Trump's 2025 net worth makeover. - 🎧 Latest Pod: The 99% Bot Problem
World's Alex Blania wants to save social media.
Sponsor: Unichain — Faster swaps. Lower fees. Deeper liquidity. Explore Unichain on web and wallet. . . . NEED TO KNOW New Top ETH Holder - 🔷 The Ether Machine Goes Public with 400K ETH via SPAC. There's a new top Ethereum treasury operator in town.
- 🟠 Trump Media Supercharges Its Bitcoin Bet. The company has stocked up on $2B in BTC as it has looked to raise its crypto profile.
- 🐳 CryptoPunks Whale Buy Ignites Hopes of NFT Resurgence. A whale's purchase of $6 million in CryptoPunks NFTs sent digital art prices rising across the board.
📸 Daily Market Snapshot: ETH held its own as BTC dropped Monday. The ETH/BTC ratio is up nearly 40% over the past month, coming back above .03 for the first time since January. | Prices as of 5pm ET | 24hr | 7d |  | Crypto $3.89T | ↘ 0.9% | ↗ 4.0% |  | BTC $116,981 | ↘ 1.0% | ↘ 2.8% |  | ETH $3,759 | ↗ 0.4% | ↗ 25.0% | . . . ANALYSIS Tracking Trump's Growing Crypto Empire It has been just six months since The Donald’s return to the White House, and America’s self-styled Crypto President has been busy. Recent reporting indicates that the first family has pocketed over $600M of cash from token sales this year and holds a crypto-adjacent investment portfolio valued in the billions. Today, we’re unpacking the Trump family’s most notable crypto plays and discussing the ramifications of their fervent crypto push 👇 🃏 Trump Digital Trading CardsWebsite President Trump’s first foray into the world of cryptocurrency, “Trump Digital Trading Cards” launched in December 2022 on the Polygon PoS chain. The initial release featured 45k cards priced at $99 per unit; it sold out within hours and generated over $4.4M in primary sale revenue. Since then, the collection has expanded with three additional series and totals to hundreds of thousands of distinct digital cards. Although advertised as digital collectibles for personal enjoyment with no investment purpose or ties to the Trump political campaign, these cards nonetheless include tangible perks, including guaranteed dinner invitations with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, authentic clippings from his 2024 "knockout" presidential debate suit, and free pairs of Trump Sneakers. Trump digital cards can be purchased via card or cryptocurrency during primary sale periods and trade on regular NFT marketplaces, such as OpenSea, post-launch. All secondary sales of Trump Digital Trading Cards are subject to 10% royalties. 🏦 World Liberty Financial (WLFI)Website World Liberty Financial is essentially a Trump-associated investment DAO that holds nearly $200M of popular crypto currencies, ranging from stablecoins to majors BTC and ETH to various altcoins (including TRX, ONDO, and MOVE). Although initially touted as some type of Aave-styled crypto-native lending application, World Liberty Financial has not made any progress towards deploying an onchain money market, besides writing “soon” next to the “Lend & Borrow” button on its website. Unlike the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins (discussed later in this article) which can be permissionlessly purchased, only persons exempt from mandatory registration under SEC Regulations D and S (i.e.; accredited U.S. and non-sanctioned international investors) can invest in WLFI. While World Liberty Financial governance just voted to remove transfer restrictions on the WLFI token, KYC re-screening and compliance monitoring will continue to ensure that tokens do not fall into the hands of unapproved purchasers. In March 2025, WLFI introduced USD1, a dollar-pegged stablecoin reserved with short-term US treasuries custodied by BitGo. At the time of writing, USD1 held a $2.2B market capitalization, making it the 7th largest stablecoin behind MakerDAO/Sky’s DAI. The Trump family holds 22.5B WLFI tokens in addition to 40% equity interest in “WLF Holdco LLC,” the developer entity behind World Liberty Financial which received 75% of token sale proceeds. 🪙 TRUMP/MELANIAWebsite A pair of memecoins respectively modeled after the President and First Lady, TRUMP and MELANIA launched in January 2025 shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration. The price action for both of these tokens has largely been down-only, but TRUMP has experienced periodic pops on various announcements. For example, token price doubled in late April on news that Donald Trump would invite 220 TRUMP holders to an exclusive dinner and rallied 10% in June after Eric Trump disclosed that World Liberty Financial would acquire a “substantial position in TRUMP” for its treasury. Anyone can purchase TRUMP and MELANIA tokens using onchain decentralized exchanges (like Uniswap), and select centralized exchanges (including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and Robinhood) offer one or both of these assets. Website Co-founded by President Donald Trump in 2021, the aptly named “Trump Media & Technology Group” is the owner/operator of Truth Social, an alt-tech social media platform built using a custom instance of open-source social media framework Mastodon. Trump’s media company became publicly traded under the ticker symbol “DJT” after merging with Digital World Acquisition Corp – a SPAC created by Shanghai investment bank ARC Capital – in March 2024. In May 2025, Trump Media disclosed it had raised $2.5B from approximately 50 institutional investors for the creation of a Bitcoin treasury, and in early June, the company registered a shelf offering with the SEC to sell an additional $12B of securities to fund future BTC buys. If fully executed, a purchase of this magnitude would make DJT the second largest crypto treasury holding company behind Strategy. Complementing its transition into a cryptocurrency holding company, Trump Media has partnered with Crypto.com to launch a slew of security and crypto exchange-traded funds with a “Made in America” focus through its upcoming Truth.Fi financial services platform. At the time of writing, DJT had filed for three distinct crypto ETFs with the SEC. Additionally, on July 9, Truth Social announced that users who subscribe to the $9.99 per month Trump Media “Patriot Package” will be rewarded with digital utility tokens held within a “Truth digital wallet” that can be used to purchase products and services within the “Truth ecosphere.” 🦅 American BitcoinWebsite American Bitcoin is a majority-owned subsidiary of BTC miner Hut 8 formed in partnership with American Data Centers that is “focused exclusively on industrial-scale Bitcoin mining and strategic Bitcoin reserve development.” The conglomerate was formed in March 2025, and under the merger agreement, Hut 8 transferred the majority of its ASIC miners to American Data Centers – a company backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. – for 80% ownership in the joint venture. Eric Trump was named as Chief Strategy Officer, and according to the Company's webpage, American Bitcoin is uniquely positioned to leverage Hut 8’s proven mining operations and Eric Trump’s “commercial acumen, capital markets expertise, and commitment to the advancement of decentralized financial systems.” On June 10, American Bitcoin disclosed it had purchased $23M of BTC. The Company subsequently revealed it raised $220M via private placement offer to fund future buys and acquire more mining equipment. Website Metaplanet (f.k.a. Red Planet) is a Japanese hotel holding company that became insolvent in 2021 due to lasting business impacts from COVID, but managed to stave off delisting from the Tokyo Stock Exchange after it was acquired by Evolution Financial Group. In June 2024, Metaplanet took its first step on the journey to becoming Asia’s leading crypto treasury play, raising ¥1B to buy BTC with a bond issued to Evolution Financial Group. Metaplanet has since built a treasury of 8,888 BTC, acquired for ¥122.2B, using a combination of share and bond primary offerings – funded exclusively by Evolution Financial Group’s “Evo Fund.” There are no Japanese custody options to hold spot BTC exposure in security brokerage accounts. Unlike competitive crypto treasury companies, Metaplanet frequently sells cash-secured put options to acquire BTC, enabling the Company to earn premium while purchasing tokens at discounted prices compared to when the option was written. On March 20, 2025, Donald Trump’s second son (Eric Trump) was named as the first member of Metaplanet’s “Strategic Board of Advisors.” Bitcoin advocate and Nakamoto chair David Bailey subsequently joined this working group in April. ☀️ TRON Inc.Website Toy manufacturer SRM Entertainment announced on June 16 that it would raise up to $210M from a “private investor” to purchase TRX. By the end of the month, SRM had completed an initial acquisition of $100M TRX, which it deployed to JustLend to earn yields of approximately 10% per year. The deal installed TRON founder Justin Sun as an advisor to SRM Entertainment, which will change its name to “Tron Inc.” Additionally, the Company plans on implementing a dividend policy upon the “successful implementation” of a TRX staking program. Although Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump sit on the advisory board of Dominari Securities LLC, the offering’s exclusive placement agent, Eric Trump refuted early Financial Times reporting claiming that he too would take a public role at SRM Entertainment. While undisclosed, Dominari likely received stock compensation for its role as placement agent. 🧐 ConclusionDonald Trump’s extensive ties to the crypto world have raised plenty of questions about whether he is unlawfully using the Office of President to personally enrich himself. Many leading Democratic congresspersons have issued sharp rebukes of Trump’s crypto ventures. Anti-crypto Senator Elizabeth Warren has slammed the President for “enriching himself and his family through their crypto businesses while his administration guts oversight of the market,” claiming his crypto portfolio amounts to a massive conflict of interest and a recipe for disaster. White House officials have dismissed all concerns of impropriety, meanwhile, Trump family members frame their involvement as part of a mission to democratize finance and make America the crypto capital of the world. While Trump has certainly profited from the presidency, supporters maintain that his personal gain is a small tradeoff for pro-crypto policy that has reversed Biden era persecution of the industry. FRIEND & SPONSOR: UNICHAIN Unichain offers the most liquid Uniswap v4 deployment on any L2 – giving you better prices, less slippage, and smoother swaps on top trading pairs. All on a fast, low-cost, and fully transparent network. Start swapping on Unichain today. . . . LATEST POD The Internet's 99% Bot Problem The bots are winning. AI-generated spam, fake profiles, and deepfakes are turning the internet into a digital hall of mirrors. But what if there were a way to prove you're human, without sacrificing privacy?
World co-founder Alex Blania returns to Bankless to share a bold vision for addressing the online identity crisis. From 14 million users already “orbed” to new integrations with dating apps and DeFi protocols, Worldcoin is evolving rapidly and facing significant questions. What happens when governments come knocking? And why does Alex think we’re heading toward internet-native citizenship?
Whether you're curious about AI-proof identity or skeptical of eyeball scanning orbs, this conversation cuts deep. Listen to the full episode👇 | 
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