trump, crypto, corruption

The president of the United States made over $1.2 billion from cryptocurrency ventures in his first year back in office. The investors who bought in are sitting on 80 percent losses.

"It's the number of people who are willing either to look the other way or to enable it."

— Mary Trump, on her uncle's billion-dollar crypto windfall

The financial disclosure that President Donald Trump was required to file with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics runs 927 pages. Buried within it is a number that should have ended the pretense of presidential ethics long ago: nearly $1.2 billion in revenue from cryptocurrency businesses in the last fiscal year.

The disclosure was released on Tuesday, July 1st. By Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was telling CBS News there was no "appearance problem" with the president of the United States taking in more money from digital tokens than most Americans will earn in several lifetimes.

Translation: the person responsible for overseeing the nation's financial policy has no qualms about his boss profiting from the very industry he helped deregulate.

The two ventures at the center of the windfall are World Liberty Financial, which generated more than $500 million from the sale of "governance tokens," and CIC Digital LLC, which brought in over $600 million from souvenir "meme" coins stamped with Trump's likeness. Both products launched after Trump took office in January 2025, after he reversed the Biden administration's regulatory crackdown on crypto and appointed a White House crypto czar to ensure a friendly business environment.

The timing is not incidental. Federal regulators had warned investors that governance tokens offer no ownership stake in the issuing company, only voting rights on certain corporate policies, and are extremely difficult to value. The investors who bought them anyway are now sitting on devastating losses.

The price of World Liberty tokens has fallen 80 percent since they began trading in September of 2025. The Trump meme coins, which spiked to over $74 per coin in the days after launching in January 2025, now trade for $1.68.

The president who sold them tells reporters he has no idea what they're doing with his money.

During an interview with CNBC's Joe Kernen on Thursday, Trump was asked about the $1.2 billion directly. His answer was a masterclass in feigned ignorance.

"I've made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don't talk to them. I never. I don't even speak to them," Trump said, referring to unnamed financial advisers who apparently execute his bidding. "By the way, I could know about it. I didn't. I mean, there's nothing illegal. There's nothing wrong with it."

When pressed on whether his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, who the disclosure confirms manage his crypto investments, could have conflicts of interest given their proximity to presidential power, Trump offered what could only be described as a half-apology wrapped in deflection.

"The presidency is so powerful, so big," he said. "If they buy a cupcake company, the energy to make the cupcakes is, sort of like, how's my energy policy? So therefore you have a conflict. If they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information. So it's pretty tough in that sense. I tell my kids, stay away from as much as you can stay away from. But they also have a life."

The cupcake company remark was not a joke. It was the closest the sitting president has come to acknowledging that his family's business ventures are inextricably linked to the policies he controls.

Bessent's defense was even more breathtaking. On CBS, the Treasury Secretary called Trump's crypto ventures part of an "innovation presidency," claiming that "all Americans are benefiting from" the digital asset ecosystem. This from the official whose job includes safeguarding the integrity of the financial system against precisely the kind of speculative, unregulated instruments that have already caused billions in investor losses.

The disclosure reveals a pattern that extends far beyond crypto. Forbes now estimates Trump's net worth at $6 billion, up from $2.3 billion in 2024. A significant portion of that growth came from international real estate deals struck during his presidency, with countries that were simultaneously negotiating with the United States over tariffs, military aid, and technology transfers.

A property in the United Arab Emirates generated $10.4 million last year. A resort in Saudi Arabia, built by a developer close to the ruling family, sent $9 million. Properties in Romania and Qatar each brought in $5 million. A new Trump resort in Vietnam was signed off by the country's deputy prime minister after the Communist Party pushed farmers off ancestral land to clear the site.

Within months of these deals, Vietnam received tariff relief, Qatar gained access to previously restricted U.S. technology, and Saudi Arabia was granted the fighter jets it had lobbied for years to obtain.

The Trump Organization maintains that all international deals were made with private companies, not governments. But in countries ruled by royal families, one-party states, and autocrats, the line between private and government is largely fictional.

The White House spokesperson Anna Kelly issued a standard denial: "Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest. All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people."

This assertion requires the reader to believe that $1.2 billion in crypto revenue, tens of millions in international real estate, a $400 million jet gifted by Qatar, and a host of branded merchandise sales including Trump-branded Bibles, sneakers, and watches ($4.7 million from watches alone) somehow have nothing to do with the policies of the United States government.

Mary Trump, the president's estranged niece and a clinical psychologist, was not surprised by the disclosure. She was interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN's 360 on Thursday.

"This is from a history of corruption," she said. "At least Donald comes by it honestly. My grandfather also engaged in all sorts of illicit financial schemes to increase his wealth, and Donald continued in that tradition."

But her main concern went beyond the raw numbers. It was the institutional collapse that enabled them.

"It's the number of people who are willing either to look the other way or to enable it," she said. "This is the president of the United States endangering the national security of American citizens because he's willing to take money from any foreign entity, no matter how potentially hostile it might be to American interests. Unfortunately, no people in power, no people who could rein him in seem to care, because they must be benefiting in some way."

She highlighted a critical difference between Trump's first and second terms: over the intervening four years, she said, "Donald and many others were able to figure out how to bypass any of the systems that are designed to keep presidential rapaciousness in check."

One of those systems was the blind trust. Recent presidents placed their assets in trusts managed by independent fiduciaries. Trump placed his in the hands of his sons. The disclosure itself notes that this arrangement "rejects the conflict of interest protections that his recent predecessors in office had instituted."

The Office of Government Ethics, the very agency that received the disclosure, has largely gone quiet on the matter. Its director, a Trump appointee, has not issued any public commentary on whether the filings meet ethical standards.

The investor losses tell the starkest part of the story. Chinese billionaire Justin Sun, who spent $75 million on World Liberty tokens and $200 million on the meme coins, saw a federal lawsuit accusing him of defrauding investors paused and then settled for a $10 million fine. Sun has denied any connection between his purchases and the legal action.

Other investors who bought governance tokens at launch have watched their holdings evaporate. The meme coins, marketed as collectible memorabilia, have proven to be nothing more than speculative instruments whose only value was the proximity of a president's name to their promotion.

Trump's disclosure does not break out profit versus revenue, so the actual net gain is impossible to calculate. But the revenue figure alone, $1.2 billion in a single year from businesses that did not exist before he took office, sets a new standard for presidential enrichment.

The question is not whether Trump's crypto ventures were corrupt. The question is why anyone with access to a functioning ethics commission was shocked.