Trump filing shows he took in about US$1.2 billion from crypto businesses last year

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Bitcoin 2024 ConferenceJuly 27, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

NEW YORK — U.S. President Donald Trump took in nearly US$1.2 billion dollars from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Tuesday shows, locking in profits while his investors were socked with losses.

Mere startups when he took the oath of office, the new ventures have now eclipsed in revenue much of his vast property portfolio that took him decades to accumulate. Fueling their rise were billionaire investors and Trump’s own move to quash a federal crackdown on the industry.

Trump got more than US$500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products, including “governance tokens,” according to the required annual disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics. It also showed another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than US$600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face.

Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales.

Trump also took in millions last year from selling Trump-branded bibles, sneakers and other small items in another unprecedented move for the presidency. The sale of Trump-branded watches alone brought in US$4.7 million.

The 927-page disclosure form paints a stark, if incomplete picture of the massive growth of the president’s wealth since taking office last January through a web of business interests — many that have benefited from the policy moves of Trump’s own government. Trump has insisted that his sons direct his finances but the arrangement rejects the conflict of interest protections that his recent predecessors in office had instituted.

Forbes estimates Trump’s net worth at US$6 billion, up from US$2.3 billion in 2024.

The Trump business is growing abroad

The rise of crypto relative to Trump’s property is especially noteworthy because he first rode to office boasting of his property wins. It’s also remarkable because that mainstay business also boomed last year. Trump took in tens of millions in fees from a flurry of new hotel, resort and condo deals overseas that amounts to the biggest property expansion ever in the century since the family business was founded.

Many of those countries were negotiating with the U.S. over tariffs, military aid, and other important matters.

A property in the United Arab Emirates took in US$10.4 million. One in Saudi Arabia being built by a real estate developer close to the ruling family sent the president’s company US$9 million. And one in Bucharest, Romania, and another in Qatar sent him US$5 million each.

One of his prominent domestic properties, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, notched big growth last year, too.

Trump took in in US$77 million from the property, a 50 per cent jump from the year earlier when he was just another citizen, as heads of state and business people flocked to it in his new term.

The disclosure report doesn’t give profit figures, just revenue, so it’s impossible to know how much he is earning.

Trump is now the billion dollar crypto man

After taking office last year, Trump reversed the Biden administration’s tough stance on the crypto industry and pushed policies friendly to the industry.

But regulators still had some concerns. Before Trump’s World Liberty began selling “governance tokens,” they issued warnings about this new kind of crypto asset, saying that unlike stocks, the tokens offer no ownership stake in the issuing company, just voting power on certain corporate polices, and are difficult to value.

Buyers pounced anyway, including a Chinese billionaire who spent US$75 million on the tokens and US$200 million on the souvenir coins. In February last year, a federal lawsuit charging him with duping investors was paused before being settled last month for a US$10 million fine.

The billionaire, Justin Sun, has repeatedly denied his spending on Trump businesses had anything to do with his federal case, while World Liberty has dismissed the notion of a conflict of interest.

Meanwhile, investors have seen the value of their meme coin holdings drop significantly. The price spiked to more than US$74 in the days after its launch in January 2025, but now sells for just US$1.68. Also, the value of the World Liberty tokens has fallen 80 per cent since they first started trading in September.

The White House says Trump only acts in the public interest

The White House has repeatedly said that Trump has put his business in a trust managed by his sons, that there are zero conflicts and he only acts in the interest of the country. The Trump umbrella company, the Trump Organization, has said its deals overseas were with private companies, not with governments.

Still, it is difficult to know what is truly private in countries ruled by authoritarians, royal families and one-party governments.

For a new Trump resort in Vietnam, the report shows Trump took in US$5 million last year after the ruling communist party sent its deputy prime minister to sign off on the deal and, according to The New York Times, pushed farmers off the land to make way for the construction.

Whether the deals played any role in changing U.S. policies in ways these countries sought is nearly impossible to know but the countries did get what they wanted.

Vietnam got tariff relief. Qatar got access to advanced U.S. technology previously off limits and Saudi Arabia got U.S. fighter jets it had coveted for years.

Bernard Condon, The Associated Press