President Trump’s venture into crypto products has increased his family’s wealth by billions in the last six months, according to a new report, as his administration continues to loosen the federal government’s regulatory approach to the digital currency industry as a whole.
The group State Democracy Defenders Action estimated in a new report that the president’s crypto holdings now represent nearly 40% of his net worth — or approximately $2.9 billion. That increase is due in part to his release of the $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins, in addition to a large stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto exchange affiliated with the Trump family that launched in October 2024. State Democracy Defenders Action identifies itself as non-partisan, but it is overseen by frequent critics of President Trump, with an agenda focused on “the autocratic threat to our nation.”
The president’s net worth is expected to get another bump, with World Liberty Financial’s announcement this week that a Abu Dhabi-backed firm will invest billions of dollars in the Trump family-affiliated crypto fund. The Emirati firm, MGX, will purchase $2 billion in a stablecoin product offered by World Liberty, the company said in a statement to CBS. The currency, called “USD1” will then be used to invest in Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
World Liberty has ties to the president and his sons.The fine print on the company’s website says an entity affiliated with Mr. Trump and his family members own a 60% stake in the company.
According to the company’s public reports, a Trump family entity also holds 22.5 billion of the $WLF tokens –- and takes an additional 75% in net revenue from future token purchases.
Details of the MGX deal have not been released, so it is unclear how much the Trump family stands to benefit from this transaction.
In a statement to CBS News, World Liberty said the deal represents the “single largest-ever investment in a crypto company” and sets a “historic precedent.” It did not respond to questions about how much the Trump family stands to make from the investment.
The White House responded to a request for comment by telling CBS News to “report on something people actually care about.” A spokesperson provided links to several White House technology initiatives.
As the president’s investments in crypto have grown, the Securities and Exchange Commission has paused investigations into a dozen crypto companies since his inauguration, a CBS News analysis found.
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“The bottom line is it appears like he’s profiting off of his public office,” said Virginia Canter, State Democracy Defenders chief counsel for ethics and anticorruption. Canter, who co-authored the new report, served as senior ethics counsel for the Treasury Department under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
“In terms of prior presidents in the modern age, they’ve all divested their assets, or they’ve rolled them over into what we call blind trusts,” Canter said. “President Trump did not do that in his first term, and it seems as if in the second term he’s doubled down and he is all in (on) the crypto industry.”
The report leans heavily on past media reports, including a Fortune magazine article that reviewed the Trump family’s financial disclosures and provided the original estimates of the president’s net worth.
Crypto companies are not legally required to disclose who is buying and selling on their platforms to the public, so little is known about who has invested in Trump family-affiliated crypto products.
Canter says this makes it more difficult to identify potential conflicts of interest.
“In his first administration, we could see who was walking in and out of the Trump hotels,” she said.
Trump hopes U.S. will be the “crypto capital of the world”
The president, who as recently as 2021 described crypto currency as a “scam,” has since embraced digital currency, saying he hopes to make the United States the “crypto capital of the world.”
Since his inauguration, Mr. Trump has made several moves to unwind the regulatory environment that many industry insiders say crippled crypto businesses.
He has issued multiple executive orders to promote cryptocurrency, including one that seeks to promote the growth of digital currencies and another that instructed the Treasury Department to create a strategic cryptocurrency reserve.
Mr. Trump has also used his office to pardon the three founders of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to failing to prevent money laundering on their platform, according to a report by Reuters.
The value of Mr. Trump’s crypto assets have at times fluctuated with his policy decisions and social media posts.
The value of $TRUMP increased 18.1% in early March after the president issued an executive order promoting a strategic cryptocurrency reserve, according to the report. A few weeks later, on March 23, the president posted “I Love $TRUMP– SO COOL!! The Greatest of them all!!!!” on Truth Social, which led to an increase in the price of the meme coin from $10.93 to $12.24.
Whether or not the $TRUMP coin increases in value, the president’s business collects trading fees when people buy or sell the coin. A Reuters analysis found that business entities behind the $TRUMP coin could have made nearly $100 million in fees in less than two weeks of trading.
World Liberty Finance: The Trump family’s crypto exchange
Aside from meme coins, the Trump family’s more recent foray into cryptocurrency may become its most profitable.
In October, then-candidate Trump helped launch World Liberty Finance, a decentralized or “defi” cryptocurrency exchange. Its website, which heavily features the president’s image, offers users the opportunity to buy into the exchange using $WLFI tokens.
“Good News, the World Liberty Financial token is now live. Crypto is the future, let’s embrace this incredible technology and lead the world in the digital economy. Go to World Liberty Financial.com,” Mr. Trump posted on X in October, before the presidential election.
The website says World Liberty is “inspired by Donald J. Trump” and Mr. Trump is listed as chief crypto advocate. His sons, Eric, Donald Jr. and Barron, are all listed as Web3 ambassadors.
Donald Trump Jr. promoted World Liberty Financial in March, at the D.C. Blockchain conference, where crypto industry insiders rubbed shoulders with members of Congress and the administration.
“I’m just super excited about what this can mean for the future of banking for the future of financial systems,” said Trump Jr., who joined World Liberty’s panel remotely. Founders Chase Herro, Zak Folkman and Zach Witkoff appeared on stage to promote World Liberty’s stablecoin offering.
Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images 
“We want Republicans, Democrats, whether it be black, blue, brown, white, to be using our stable coin,” said Zach Witkoff, the son of Steven Witkoff, the White House special envoy to the Middle East. “We think it democratizes finance.”
World Liberty says it has raised more than $550 million from investors who purchase the $WLF governance token. The majority of these investors remain anonymous to the public. For now, these $WLFI tokens are non redeemable, meaning that once they are purchased, users cannot exchange them.
World Liberty denied CBS’ multiple requests for an interview.
Justin Sun, the crypto billionaire famous for buying and eating a $6.2 million banana duct-taped to the wall, is one of World Liberty’s few publicly known investors.
Sun, who was being investigated for securities fraud in the Biden administration, said he invested $30 million shortly after Mr. Trump’s election, at the time claiming in a post on X to be World Liberty’s”largest investor.”
Days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Sun said he invested another $45 million, which he also disclosed in a post on X. A few weeks later, the Securities and Exchange Commission reversed itself and asked the judge to grant a stay in Sun’s case, citing “public interest.” The pause in Sun’s case was part of a larger push by the SEC to dismiss cases against crypto companies.
A spokesperson for Sun and the SEC declined to comment.
Last month, Democrats on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee sent a letter to the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency about the potential for conflict of interest as the Trump administration considers regulations of companies like World Liberty Financial.
“President Trump’s involvement in this venture, as he strips financial regulators of their independence…presents an extraordinary conflict of interest that could create unprecedented risks to our financial system,” said the letter, which was signed by five Democrats, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden and Chris Van Hollen.
World Liberty Financial says 85,000 investors have gone through a standard Know Your Customer process to determine “participation eligibility,” and the company says it is arranging for a third-party accounting firm to audit its new venture into the U.S.-debt-backed stablecoins.
As president, Mr. Trump is not subject to the criminal conflict-of-interest law. But he is required to disclose his assets and income under the Ethics in Government Act, including his crypto assets. The next financial disclosure report deadline for the president is May 15.
