After becoming the President of America, Donald Trump has been in the headlines for his crypto policy. But there is one more thing that is keeping him in the headlines, actually we are talking about Trump's total assets. In the last 9 months, Trump has done something in the crypto world that has caught the attention of investors around the world. According to Forbes report, he has earned about $1 billion through NFT collections, stablecoin projects and meme coins. This has taken his total assets to $5.6 billion, whereas a year ago he was struggling with severe cash crunch and legal cases.
First big success from NFT
Donald Trump’s crypto journey began in December 2022 when he launched an NFT collection called “Donald Trump Digital Trading Card”. It was promoted on Truth Social with “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!”. Each card was priced at $99 and sales touched $4.4 million on the first day itself.
The project earned him $7 million, proving that his name has its own brand value in the crypto market, even if he previously described it as based on “thin air”.
The rise of Stablecoin USD1 and World Liberty Financial
Ahead of the 2024 election, Donald Trump launched a crypto financial platform called “World Liberty Financial”. The project aimed to make the US a global hub for crypto.
It saw token sales worth $30 million in the first round, then well-known investors like Justin Sun added another $45 million. Total token sales have reached $550 million so far, of which about $390 million has gone directly to Trump.
Under this project, USD1 Stablecoin was launched, whose market cap has now reached $2.2 billion. A firm associated with the President of the UAE has also planned a $2 billion investment in Binance through this token. It was also recently announced that users will get free USD1 Stablecoin from the WLFI Airdrop.
$TRUMP Memecoin, huge profits despite disclaimer
Just days before becoming president, Donald Trump launched a memecoin called $TRUMP. Although it was clearly written that it was “not for investment”, it still generated $350 million in fees and revenue.He has access to an initial release of 200 million tokens and an additional 800 million tokens. So far, he has unlocked 64 million tokens, which are worth about $700 million according to the current market price ($11).
Is this a Pump & Dump strategy?
As a crypto writer, I see Donald Trump's strategy as a well-thought-out scheme where he first invests privately in a project, then publicly promotes it to encourage the public to participate, and finally reaps huge profits for himself when prices rise.
This pattern seems similar to a traditional "Pump and Dump" scheme, with the only difference being that it uses the popularity and political power of a president.The question also arises whether he is taking advantage of his public position to promote projects in which he has a personal interest? In such a situation, the common investor may be confused, is this really a legitimate opportunity or just political branding?