A Democracy Drive Thread
How the family built a multibillion-dollar crypto empire from the White House — a memecoin, a stablecoin, foreign money, mining and treasury companies, and a pardon.
Beginning just before the second inauguration, Trump and his family moved aggressively into cryptocurrency — launching tokens, a stablecoin, and mining and treasury companies — while the administration dismantled the enforcement apparatus that had policed the industry. This thread tracks the ventures and the official actions around them in chronological order, with sources, including the conflicts of interest that ethics experts and lawmakers flagged.
September 15, 2024
Trump and his sons launched World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture, during the 2024 campaign. After the election an Abu Dhabi vehicle tied to the UAE’s national security adviser bought a 49% stake for $500 million — sending roughly $187 million to Trump-controlled entities — and the firm later issued its own dollar-backed stablecoin, USD1.
January 17, 2025
Days before being sworn in, Trump launched the $TRUMP memecoin (his wife followed with $MELANIA). Trump-affiliated entities controlled roughly 80% of the supply and collected trading fees. The token briefly topped a $14 billion market value, then collapsed: more than 760,000 wallets lost about $2 billion while insiders took in over $100 million in fees — ultimately an estimated $320 million.
January 19, 2025
When the first lady launched the $MELANIA meme coin on January 19, 2025, the Financial Times found that 24 wallets bought roughly $2.6 million of it about two and a half minutes before her public announcement — one wallet buying $681,000 just 64 seconds early and flipping it for a $39 million profit within a day. In all, pre-launch insiders netted an estimated $99 million, with some wallets reportedly linked to figures behind the coin’s technology. Under the Trump SEC’s hands-off posture, such trades on a sitting first family’s token fall outside federal insider-trading rules — the template for a family business built on moving a market and knowing exactly when it will move.
February 27, 2025
The administration dismantled crypto enforcement. The SEC dropped or paused more than a dozen cases — including suits against Coinbase, Binance and Kraken it had been winning — moving on February 27 to dismiss the Coinbase case; the agency called its prior approach a “misinterpretation” of securities law. In April the Justice Department disbanded its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team. Several firms that benefited had donated to Trump’s inauguration.
April 30, 2025
On the ground
Trump had offered a private dinner to the top 220 coin holders.
May 1, 2025
An Abu Dhabi state-backed firm, MGX, said it would use World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin for a $2 billion investment in Binance — effectively a $2 billion deposit into the Trump-linked project. Senators Warren and Merkley demanded records, warning a foreign government was routing billions through a business the president’s family profits from.
May 13, 2025
On the ground
About 80% of the coin supply is controlled by Trump-linked entities, so purchases enrich his family.
May 22, 2025
In April 2025, Trump’s meme-coin site announced that the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP token would be rewarded with a private dinner with the president at his Virginia golf club; the coin’s price jumped roughly 50% on the news as buyers competed for slots. The dinner was held May 22, 2025 — one attendee said he spent $500,000 on the token to get in. Sen. Richard Blumenthal called it an “unprecedented pay-to-play scheme to provide access to the presidency to the highest bidder,” and Sens. Schiff and Warren demanded an ethics investigation. It is market manipulation as a business model: dangle presidential access, then watch the price of the token the president’s family profits from climb.
Trump hosted a private gala dinner at his Virginia golf club for the top 220 holders of his $TRUMP memecoin, with VIP White House tours for the very top buyers. Analyses of the leading wallets indicated many were non-Americans tied to offshore exchanges; the promise of access drove fresh buying of the token his family profits from.
June 14, 2025
Trump’s June financial disclosure reported more than $600 million in income and $1.6 billion in assets, much of it crypto. A House Judiciary staff report later put the family’s crypto holdings as high as $11.6 billion and crypto-sale income above $800 million in the first half of 2025 alone.
July 21, 2025
Trump Media & Technology Group (ticker DJT), the company behind Truth Social in which Trump holds a large stake, disclosed a roughly $2 billion bitcoin-and-crypto treasury plus a $300 million options strategy — making the president’s media company one of the largest corporate crypto holders.
September 1, 2025
On the ground
The family-co-founded crypto venture’s token began trading on Sept. 1, 2025. The family holds 22.5 billion WLFI tokens, plus a stake in the parent company and a large share of token-sale revenue. Sen. Elizabeth Warren called it “corruption, plain and simple.” The token fell sharply after launch.
September 3, 2025
American Bitcoin — a mining venture co-founded by Eric Trump and backed by Donald Trump Jr., majority-owned through miner Hut 8 — began trading on the Nasdaq under ticker ABTC after a merger, briefly reaching a roughly $5 billion valuation and moving to raise billions more to buy bitcoin.
September 26, 2025
On the ground
The SEC had charged Sun and his companies, Tron, BitTorrent and Rainberry, with selling unregistered securities and fraudulently manipulating the price of the Tronix token. After Sun’s $75 million World Liberty purchase, which he promoted on social media, the SEC and Sun jointly asked a judge in February 2025 to pause the case, citing “the public’s interest.” Sun went on to become the largest holder of the president’s $TRUMP meme coin and attended Trump’s May 2025 dinner for top coin holders. In 2026 he sued World Liberty, accusing it of freezing his tokens.
October 23, 2025
Trump pardoned Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the Binance founder who had pleaded guilty to a money-laundering charge in 2023. Binance had boosted World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin — including the $2 billion Emirati deal — and lobbied for the pardon. Asked about it, Trump said he didn’t know who Zhao was.
October 29, 2025
On the ground
Reuters found the Trump Organization’s first-half income rose to $864 million from $51 million a year earlier, driven by crypto, dwarfing the $33 million from golf clubs and resorts. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. pitched World Liberty tokens on a global roadshow, and foreign crypto entrepreneurs told Reuters they sought the brothers out because of their proximity to the president. Of the 50 largest World Liberty wallets, 36, holding $804 million, were likely tied to overseas buyers. An Abu Dhabi state firm used the family’s USD1 stablecoin for a $2 billion stake in Binance.
November 2, 2025
On the ground
Norah O’Donnell had asked about pardoning Binance founder Changpeng Zhao after Binance helped a $2 billion deal using the Trump family’s stablecoin. CBS also cut his threat to walk out.
““I can’t say, because — I can’t say — I’m not concerned. I don’t — I’d rather not have you ask the question.””