The president's "official media" issues currency, and the market performance is "desensitized"; Trump's crypto empire lacks novelty

Author: BUBBLE, BlockBeats

The Trump Media & Technology Group "DJT" has sparked heated discussions in the crypto circle today, as on the eve of the annual shareholders' meeting on April 30, 2025, CEO Devin Nunes sent a letter to shareholders mentioning the strong correlation of the next phase goals of its social media platform Truth Social, streaming platform Truth+, and fintech brand Truth.Fi with crypto.

Almost on the same day at Token2049 in Dubai, Trump’s second son Eric Trump revealed that the Trump Organization announced a partnership with luxury real estate developer Dar Global to invest $1 billion in Dubai to create Trump-branded hotels and residences. The two parties have previously collaborated multiple times, including the Trump-branded golf villa in Muscat, Oman, the Trump Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the Trump Tower in Dubai, but this collaboration marks the first time they will accept cryptocurrency payments.

From NFTs to Memecoins, from DeFi to RWA, from social media to stablecoins, from mining companies to blockchain games, the Trump family seems to want to participate in all areas of crypto.

Trump's TruthFi Crypto Plan

Trump has been very busy lately.

He switches between his roles as the President of the United States, cryptocurrency entrepreneur, and media company owner. Just after preparing limited edition Trump Tourbillon watches for the top four holders of "Trump Coin" attending the TRUMP dinner, he stood on the podium at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, delivering a speech on his first 100 days in office.

In the shareholder letter released on the same day as the "100 Days Speech," Trump once again connected with cryptocurrency. The letter mentioned that the Trump Media & Technology Group is planning to "tokenize" its streaming platform Truth+. In addition, Truth plans to introduce a "digital wallet" and a utility token, initially to be used for Truth+ subscription payments, and later to be applied to other products and services within the Truth ecosystem.

Subsequently, they launched another new product, Truth.Fi, which encompasses financial services and fintech. As early as November 2024, the Trump Media & Technology Group submitted a trademark application for Truth.Fi, which mentioned that its business scope includes "downloadable computer software for use as a digital wallet."

Truth.Fi plans to launch its first two products this year, one being customized separately managed accounts "SMAs" developed in collaboration with Index Technologies Group and Yorkville America Equities, and the other being customized exchange-traded funds "ETFs" in partnership with Crypto.com and Yorkville America Digital. The ETFs will cover both cryptocurrency and traditional stock markets.

The letter further mentioned that the overall strategy of the Trump Media Group includes investing up to $250 million of the company's cash reserves in Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies, with these assets to be custodied by Charles Schwab, while Trump, the billionaire president, owns over 50% of Trump Media.

$DJT "Desensitized"

At the end of the open letter, Devin Nunes condemned the market's "naked short selling" behavior, mentioning that since DJT's stock debuted on Nasdaq, he has observed unusual trading activities. DJT has appeared on the Nasdaq Reg SHO threshold list for more than two consecutive months, indicating a high likelihood of "naked short selling" or other manipulation signs. However, aside from "naked short selling," DJT seems to face larger issues.

Note: Naked short selling is a stock trading behavior where the seller does not actually hold or borrow the stock when selling it, but directly sells a short position, promising to deliver the stock in the future. Unlike regular short selling, where stocks are borrowed before being sold, naked short selling does not ensure the stock's deliverability at the time of the trade.

This "grassroots company" was founded after Trump was stripped of his voice by major social media in January 2021, in collaboration with California lawmaker Devin Nunes and 600,000 supporters. Since its listing on March 26, 2024, it has been referred to as a "Meme" stock, with its price heavily influenced by Trump's popularity. The 2024 annual financial report disclosed a net loss of $401 million for the year, due to its imperfect products and strong competitors, with months of losses and slow user growth causing its stock price to drop to a quarter.

As Trump's re-election reignited market enthusiasm, unfortunately, market sentiment did not change the fundamentals, leading the Trump Media & Technology Group to place its hopes on tokenization, hoping this concept could attract more capital inflow.

However, after the release of this letter to shareholders, the market did not seem to react significantly, whether regarding the cryptocurrency of Truth+ or the grand vision of TruthFi bridging crypto and traditional finance, it appears that the Trump Media & Technology Group has yet to find that "gem on the crown."

Mindless "Scripted Play," Trump's Crypto Empire Lacks Novelty

Trump's connection to the world of cryptocurrency is rapidly deepening, with continuous developments and almost no signs of slowing down. This "crypto president" is speeding down this path. However, it seems that the vehicle this crypto president is riding is still the one that conquered the "real estate" industry decades ago.

NFTs & GAMEFI

In 2024, Trump launched the first batch of about 50,000 NFTs, priced at $99 each, which sold out in less than a day. Similar to the Trump Coin a year later, purchasing a "Trump" NFT allowed participation in events he hosted. Many people bought Trump trading card NFTs worth over $10,000, and he seemed to have discovered a business opportunity within this, subsequently releasing multiple sets of NFTs. This system was again applied to his MemeCoin a few months later.

According to Fortune, multiple sources revealed that Trump is collaborating with his business friend Bill Zanker, who helped Trump launch the NFT project, to develop a crypto-based real estate-themed game, expected to launch at the end of April this year, but no official information has been released so far.

DeFi & Stablecoins

World Liberty Financial was established in August 2024, at which time members of the Trump family became its supporters and ambassadors, with Trump becoming its "chief cryptocurrency advocate," making it hard not to link the two. In October 2024, WLFI launched a non-transferable governance token $WLFI, with the Trump family holding 2.25 billion WLFI tokens and entitled to 75% of the net protocol revenue, with the project aiming to raise $300 million.

Initial sales only reached $12 million, until Trump was elected president, causing a wave of FOMO in the market, leading to a rapid sellout, with Tron founder Justin Sun investing $30 million to become its largest external investor. Subsequently, WLFI announced plans to invest in multiple tokens, and to this day, the funds in its address have shrunk from $400 million to $100 million.

In March 2025, WLFI announced a partnership with Binance to launch a dollar-pegged stablecoin USD1, initially to be issued on the Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum blockchain, managed centrally by World Liberty Financial, with powers to "freeze accounts," "blacklist transactions," and "adjust policies." Such extensive powers starkly contrast with the cryptocurrency community's perception of the "decentralized" concept of stablecoins, but Eric Trump's recent public statements reveal their intent: "Everything that can be done on the blockchain is more efficient than the current financial institutions' operations; SWIFT is a disaster." After years of limitations from the traditional financial system, he seeks to find his own rules, focusing on the payment system.

Memes

On January 17, 2025, Trump officially launched a Memecoin named after himself—TRUMP, with an initial issuance of 1 billion tokens, of which 200 million were publicly sold, and 800 million were held by Trump's companies "CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC." The token quickly sparked global discussions, with its market cap soaring to $7 billion, and despite such a high market cap, the market's enthusiasm continued to grow, with many believing this was a significant boost for crypto, leading to continued purchases. It wasn't until the third day after the TRUMP issuance that First Lady MELANIA also issued her own token named MELANIA, that the market realized the issue, and both tokens subsequently plummeted.

Until the recent token unlock day, a large number of tokens held by speculators needed to be unlocked. The Trump team employed the NFT strategy from months ago, announcing that the first 220 holders would have the opportunity to dine privately with Trump, triggering FOMO in the community, and the token price soared. However, while the previous dinner required $10,000, this time it demanded $300,000. Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis pointed out that this memecoin has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto revenue for entities associated with Trump.

Bitcoin Mining

At the end of last month, Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 released an official press release on March 31, announcing a partnership with members of the Trump family to establish American Bitcoin Corp., with Eric Trump serving as Chief Strategy Officer. Hut 8 holds 80% of the new company, while the remaining 20% is held by investment entities including Trump's brothers, with plans to list on Nasdaq under the code "USA."

From the tokenization of social platforms to creating a real estate empire accepting crypto payments, from stablecoins, Memecoins, DeFi, NFTs to Bitcoin mining, the Trump family is embedding cryptocurrency into every corner of its business and political landscape in its own way. The crypto industry has never been as deeply intertwined with a U.S. president and his family as it is today.

However, even if these projects lack novelty, Trump still sweeps through the crypto market with his personal influence and emotional appeal using an Old School corporate acquisition model. Whether you are a Builder, Trader, or project party, it is almost impossible to ignore the momentum the Trump family has generated in the crypto world. This great leap forward by the Trump family is not just a performance; it may also signal that the narrative center of the next cycle is no longer solely defined by developers.

Sources:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-family-going-crypto-projects-140000972.html

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