Trump's sons assert no participation in the alleged Trump memecoin digital wallet, official or otherwise.
Buckle Up! Here's the Inside Scoop on the Trump Family's Crypto Debacle
Grab a seat and some popcorn, folks, because things are about to get interesting in the world of cryptocurrency!
In the realm of digital assets, the Trump family is learning a tough lesson about partnering with the internet's most peculiar characters.
Let's catch up quick. On Tuesday, crypto researcher Molly White dropped a bombshell that the president himself was gearing up to launch a Trump-branded cryptocurrency wallet, encouraging folks to trade his $TRUMP memecoin. Of course, if you're new to this game, a crypto wallet is essentially a personal online vault for storing digital assets like, you guessed it, cryptocurrencies!
The project, White revealed, was being developed by two Trump-family-run entities in partnership with a crypto marketplace called Magic Eden. Fast forward a few hours, and Magic Eden confirmed White's report, announcing the "Official $TRUMP Wallet by President Trump." The official Trump memecoin website also joined the party with a post on X.
So far, nothing out of the ordinary for crypto-land under Trump 2.0. The Trump family has raked in nearly $1 billion in paper gains (thanks to a Bloomberg estimate) through various ventures since the president's re-election in November, with the wallet just another addition to the growing crypto empire.
But then, things took a turn.
The Trump sons came out denying any involvement with this wallet project. Don Jr. took to social media claiming he and Eric "knew nothing about it," but that a separate one of their crypto ventures, World Liberty Financial, would launch an official wallet "soon." Even Barron Trump, the quiet one on social media, chimed in to assert that the family "has zero involvement with this wallet."
So, WTF is going on?
It seems to be more than just a slight misunderstanding.
As White noted in an update to her story, Magic Eden is a significant player in crypto, so this isn't a case of some random upstart creating a fake project pretending to be an official Trump-affiliated app.
However, it's far from clear how a run-of-the-mill wallet announcement morphed into a public spat.
A Trump Organization spokeswoman wrote in an email that "Eric and Don had no prior knowledge on this project, and there is no agreement with The Trump Organization."
The Trump Family's Crypto Adventures Continue, But with a Twist of Corruption Allegations
The ongoing crypto endeavors of Trump and his sons continue to expand, creating more avenues for corruption. Or so says a related article, "Trump's Crypto Conflicts Keep Piling Up. He's Not Even Trying to Hide Them." Representatives for the Trump memecoin and Magic Eden didn't respond to our company's request for comment Wednesday.
Just to hammer the point home, Eric Trump threatened Magic Eden with a lawsuit in a post Tuesday night, warning the company to "be extremely careful using our name in a project that has not been approved and is unknown to anyone in our organization."
Strange Bedfellows, Uncomfortable Alliances
Interestingly, the sides involved in this rift are not total strangers.
On one side, we've got the Trump boys running the Trump Organization, which has an affiliate called CIC Digital, which shares the majority of $TRUMP memecoins with another company called Fight Fight Fight.
Fight Fight Fight is led by a longtime Trump business associate, Bill Zanker, who co-wrote a book with the president in 2008 and has been involved in several Trump-related crypto projects. Zanker has been the man behind the scenes in many ways, like the memecoin dinner at Trump's DC-area golf club (as reported by Bloomberg's Olga Kharif).
Why Should We Care?
The $3 trillion crypto industry is thrilled to have a cheerleader in the White House who's promised to push friendly legislation and ease regulatory restrictions. However, many crypto execs and investors are holding their noses and looking the other way whenever Trump embraces the sillier (and sometimes shady) aspects of the crypto world.
From the memecoin, a joke-based subcategory of crypto with no real-world application and often associated with scams, to the strategic reserve and the pardoning of a notorious crypto criminal, or the Trump $TRUMP dinner, heavily criticized for selling access to the president.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wasted no time squashing those criticisms during a press briefing hours before the May 22 dinner, telling reporters it was "absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off the presidency."
This brouhaha over the crypto wallet launch isn't making it easier to sell crypto as a mature, sophisticated investment ready for prime time. Stay tuned for updates on this wild rollercoaster ride!
- The ongoing crypto ventures of the Trump family are unearthing allegations of corruption, as highlighted in an article titled "Trump's Crypto Conflicts Keep Piling Up. He's Not Even Trying to Hide Them."
- Politics, business, finance, and general-news intertwine in the Trump family's controversial foray into the crypto industry, creating unease among crypto executives and investors who view the president's embracement of questionable crypto practices as a hindrance to the maturity and respectability of digital assets.
