NEW YORK – Entities behind President Donald Trump’s crypto coin have accumulated close to $100 million in trading fees in less than two weeks, according to estimates from three blockchain analysis firms, a large windfall from a venture that has seen tens of thousands of small traders lose money.
The meme coin, known as $Trump, was launched by the president on Jan. 17 and quickly surged, reaching a peak of over $14.5 billion in overall market value by Jan. 19, the day before his inauguration. It has since slumped by two-thirds.
Three crypto data firms, including Merkle Science and Chainalysis, analyzed the blockchain, a publicly available ledger that shows all transactions involving $Trump, for Reuters. They estimated that the $Trump token had generated between $86 million and $100 million in trading fees by Jan. 30.
The estimates far exceed what has been previously reported.
One of the entities behind the crypto coin is a company owned by Trump, called CIC Digital. The official website for $Trump says CIC Digital will “receive trading revenue derived from trading activities” of the meme coin. Reuters could not determine what portion of the fees so far, if any, had accrued to Trump personally, nor the ownership of the other entities behind the coin.
The creators of the meme coin receive a share of the trading fees from Meteora, a little-known crypto exchange where the $Trump coins were first sold, the blockchain analyses showed.
At least fifty of the largest investors in the coin have made profits in excess of $10 million each on the $Trump coin, according to Chainalysis. At the same time, some 200,000 crypto wallets, most with small holdings, lost money on $Trump on the exchange, it said.
Trump has pledged to put his assets in a trust managed by his children on entering the White House. His son, Eric Trump, speaking on behalf of the Trump Organization, told Reuters in response to questions about the fees that he is proud of what “we continue to accomplish in crypto. $Trump is currently the hottest digital meme on earth.”
“We are just getting started,” he added.
The White House responded to a list of questions from Reuters with a two-page fact sheet describing Trump’s executive order earlier this month on digital financial technology. It did not address questions about the trading fees.
Trump has promised to become the first “crypto president” and make America the “crypto capital of the planet” by overhauling regulations and promoting ownership of digital assets. Several key figures in his administration, cabinet and circles hold crypto or have ties to the crypto industry.
But the combination of large dollar amounts around his crypto ventures and their opaque nature has also sparked criticism from ethics experts and Trump’s political opponents in the Democratic party.
“There’s an ethical concern that in effect he has the power to regulate his own business,” said Richard Briffault, a law professor at Columbia University.
Reuters was unable to determine how much of Trump’s own wealth comes from this newest crypto business because precise details of his ownership are not public. Trump’s other crypto investments include two decentralized finance (DeFi) projects – a type of platform that connects buyers and sellers without the need for traditional intermediaries like banks – and a series of non-fungible tokens, a type of digital asset.
OPAQUE OWNERSHIP
Meme coins are crypto tokens that feature branding or names referencing memes or internet trends. They are usually highly volatile and have scant practical use. Trump’s coin, for example, is intended as an expression of support for the president’s call to ‘fight, fight, fight’ after he was shot at a campaign rally last year.
The exact ownership of Trump’s meme coins is hidden behind opaque limited liability companies. Fight Fight Fight, a Delaware-registered company, is the owner of the official website for the coin, gettrumpmemes.com.
William Zanker, a Trump business associate who in 2022 collaborated with him on digital assets, is listed as the primary contact for Fight Fight Fight in registration documents. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Fight Fight Fight is owned by Trump’s CIC Digital and Celebration Cards, according to the meme coin’s website. Reuters could not ascertain the identity of the people behind Celebration Cards, which also receives revenue from the trading activities of the meme coin.
The official $Trump website says up to 1 billion $Trump coins will be sold over the next 36 months. Initially, a tranche of 200 million $Trump coins was released to the market, when the coin’s creators transferred them to three crypto wallets, the blockchain analysis shows. The meme coin’s website says Fight Fight Fight and CIC Digital own the remaining 800 million coins, worth around $16 billion at the coin’s current price of about $20.
Merkle Science said the three crypto wallets were the earliest holders of the $Trump tokens and received the coins directly from their creators without purchasing them. Chainalysis said that, based on its assessment, the three wallet addresses “belong to creators of the $Trump coin.”
Blockchain analysis firms track the movement of crypto coins on the public ledger that underpins most digital assets. They connect digital wallets – which are anonymous – with known individuals or entities via proprietary research and investigations.
TRADING FEES
The wallets began trading the tokens on Meteora, a DeFi exchange, the blockchain analyses show.
Traders on Meteora pay a fee to the coin creators for providing liquidity, a function that enables buyers and sellers to trade an asset smoothly. The creators do so by putting some of their assets in so-called “liquidity pools”, which then stand ready to enable trading on the exchange.
Meteora says it allows creators to “mint a meme coin and earn fees for life.” The exchange also receives fees.
Ben Chow, the Meteora co-founder, said in a Telegram chat that he did not know anything about the team behind the Trump token. In response to a question on how Meteora was involved with the launch of the $Trump token, Chow said: “I didn’t connect with the team precisely.” He added that “the team reached out” to his co-founder, who is known only as Meow. Reuters could not reach Meow.
The fees on Meteora vary during spells of market volatility, its website says, with “surge pricing” in place, where fees rise with higher demand.
Between Jan.17 and Jan. 30, the three wallets earned fees of $86 million through these activities on Meteora, Merkle Science estimated. Chainalysis assessed that the three had earned about $94 million in trading fees over the same period.
A third blockchain analytics firm, whose founder requested that it not be identified, said by Jan. 29 it calculated the meme coin had garnered roughly $100 million in fees.
(Reporting by Tom Wilson and Michelle Conlin; additional reporting by Tom Bergin, Luc Cohen, Lawrence Delevingne and Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Tom Lasseter, Megan Davies, Paritosh Bansal and Daniel Flynn)
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