President's 'Official' Coin Issuance, Market Performance 'Desensitized'; Trump's Crypto Empire Lacks Novelty

The Trump Media Technology Group, Inc. ("DJT"), caused a stir in the crypto community today as Chief Executive Officer Devin Nunes of Trump Media Company released a letter to shareholders on the day before the company's annual shareholder meeting on April 30, 2025. The letter mentioned the next-phase goals of its social media platform Truth Social, streaming platform Truth+, and financial technology brand Truth.Fi in strong connection with crypto.

Almost on the same day at Dubai Token2049, Eric Trump, son of Trump, revealed that the Trump Organization announced a $1 billion investment collaboration with luxury real estate developer Dar Global to build a Trump-branded hotel and residences in Dubai. The two parties have previously collaborated on projects including Trump-branded golf villas in Muscat, Oman, the Trump Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the Trump Tower in Dubai, but this collaboration marks the first time accepting cryptocurrency payments.

From NFTs to Memecoins, from DeFi to RWA, from social to stablecoins, from mining to blockchain games, the Trump family seems to be engaging in every aspect of Crypto.

Trump's TruthFi Crypto Plan

Trump has been busy lately.

Switching between his roles as former U.S. President, cryptocurrency entrepreneur, and media company owner. While still preparing limited Trump Tourbillon watches for the top 4 holders of "Trump Coin" attending the TRUMP gala dinner, he then took the stage at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, to deliver his 100-day presidential address.

On the same day as the "100-day address" release, in the Trump Media Technology Group shareholder letter, Trump once again intertwined with cryptocurrency. The letter mentioned that the Trump Media Technology Group is planning to "tokenize" its Truth+ TV streaming platform. In addition, Truth intends to integrate a "digital wallet" and introduce a utility token, initially usable for payment of Truth+ subscription fees, which will later be applied to other products and services within the Truth ecosystem.

Later, it launched another new product called Truth.Fi, which is a financial services and fintech-centric offering. As early as November 2024, the Trump Media Technology Group filed a trademark application for Truth.Fi, stating that the content of its business scope is "downloadable computer software for use as a digital wallet."

Truth.Fi plans to launch its first two products this year, one of which is a customized Separately Managed Account (SMA) developed in partnership with Index Technologies Group and Yorkville America Equities, and a customized Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) developed in partnership with Crypto.com and Yorkville America Digital. The ETFs business will cover both the cryptocurrency and traditional stock realms.

The letter also mentioned that the overall strategy of the Trump Media Group includes investing up to $250 million of the company's cash reserves in Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies, with these assets being custodied by Charles Schwab. Former President Trump, the billionaire majority shareholder of the Trump Media Group, owns over 50% of the company.

$DJT Has "Desensitized"

In the concluding remarks of the open letter, Devin Nunes condemned the market's "naked shorting" behavior, mentioning the observed unusual trading activity surrounding DJT's stock since its debut on the NASDAQ. DJT has appeared on the NASDAQ Reg SHO threshold list for over two months in a row, indicating a high likelihood of "naked shorting" or other signs of manipulation. However, beyond "naked shorting," DJT seems to have larger issues at play.

Disclaimer: Naked shorting is a stock trading practice where the seller, when selling a stock, does not actually hold or borrow the stock but instead sells it directly as a naked short position, committing to deliver the stock in the future. Unlike regular shorting where the stock is borrowed before selling, naked shorting does not ensure the availability of the stock for delivery at the time of the trade.

This is the so-called "grassroots company" that was jointly founded by former President Trump and California Congressman Devin Nunes along with 600,000 supporting investor-participants after Trump was deplatformed by major social media platforms in January 2021. Since its listing on March 26, 2024, it has been dubbed a "Meme" stock due to its association with Trump's influence. In its full-year 2024 financial report, it disclosed a net loss of $4.01 billion for the year, attributed to its imperfect products, strong competitors, consecutive losses, and sluggish user growth, causing its stock price to plummet to a quarter of its previous value.

With the re-election of Trump reigniting market enthusiasm, unfortunately, the market sentiment has not changed fundamentally. Therefore, the Trump Media Technology Group is now looking to tokenize the group, hoping that this concept will attract more funding.

However, after the shareholder letter was released, the market seemed unimpressed, whether it was the cryptocurrencyization of Truth+ or TruthFi's grand plan to bridge crypto and traditional finance. It seems that the Trump Media Technology Group has not yet found that "gem on the crown."

Brainless "Rerun Script," Trump's Crypto Empire Lacks Freshness

Trump's connection to the cryptocurrency world is deepening rapidly, with continuous related developments showing almost no sign of slowing down. The "Crypto President" is speeding along this road. Yet, it seems that the car the Crypto President is riding is still the one that conquered the "real estate" industry decades ago.

NFTs & GAMEFI

In 2024, Trump launched an initial batch of around 50,000 NFTs priced at $99 each, which sold out in less than a day. Similar to the Trump Coin a year later, by purchasing "Trump" NFTs, one could attend his banquet events. Many people at the time bought Trump trading card NFTs for over $10,000, and he seemed to find a business opportunity in this. Trump then released multiple sets of NFTs again, which were later used for his MemeCoin a few months later.

According to Fortune, multiple sources revealed that Trump is collaborating with his business confidant, Bill Zanker, who helped Trump launch NFT projects, to develop a crypto-based real estate-themed game set to launch by the end of April this year, although no official information has been released so far.

DeFi & Stablecoin

World Liberty Financial was established in August 2024, with members of the Trump family becoming supporters and ambassadors. Trump became the "Chief Cryptocurrency Advocate," inevitably tying the two together. In October 2024, WLFI launched the non-transferable governance token $WLFI, with the Trump family holding 2.25 billion WLFI tokens and entitled to 75% of net protocol revenue, aiming to raise $300 million.

Initial sales only reached $12 million until Trump was elected president, causing a frenzy in the market leading to a rapid sell-off. TRON founder Justin Sun went even further, investing $30 million to become its largest external investor. WLFI then announced investments in multiple tokens, and to this day, the funds in its address have shrunk from $400 million to $100 million.

In March 2025, WLFI announced a partnership with Binance to launch a USD-pegged stablecoin called USD1. Initially, it will be issued on the Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum blockchain, centrally managed by World Liberty Financial, with capabilities such as "freezing accounts," "blacklisting transactions," and "permission to adjust policies." The significant level of control led the cryptocurrency community to question the stablecoin's "decentralization" concept. However, Eric Trump's recent public statement highlighted the true purpose behind it, stating, "Everything that can be done on the blockchain is more efficient than the current operation of financial institutions, and SWIFT is a disaster." After years of restrictions within the traditional financial system, he sought to define his own rules, shifting his focus to the payment system.

Memes

On January 17, 2025, Trump officially launched a Memecoin named after him—TRUMP, with an initial supply of 1 billion tokens, of which 200 million were publicly sold, and 800 million held by Trump's companies, "CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC." The token quickly sparked global discussions, skyrocketing to a market capitalization of $7 billion. Despite its high value, the market enthusiasm continued to grow, with many still viewing it as a significant positive for the Crypto market and continuously buying in. It wasn't until the third day after TRUMP's launch that the First Lady, MELANIA, also issued her own eponymous token—MELANIA. It was then that the market realized the issue, and the value of both tokens began to plummet.

Until the recent token unlock day, a large number of whale investors' tokens needed to be unlocked. The Trump team employed a tactic used with NFTs several months prior, announcing that the top 220 holders would have the opportunity to have a private dinner with Trump, generating FOMO sentiment within the community and causing the coin price to soar. However, while the previous dinner only cost $10,000, this time it was set at $300,000. Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis pointed out that this memecoin had generated hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto profits for entities related to Trump.

Bitcoin Mining

Just at the end of last month, Bitcoin mining publicly traded company Hut 8, on March 31, announced in an official press release its collaboration with members of the Trump family to establish the American Bitcoin Corp. Eric Trump will serve as the Chief Strategy Officer. Hut 8 will hold 80% of the new company, with the remaining 20% owned by investment entities, including the Trump brothers, under American Data Centers. The company plans to list on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "USA."

From social media platform tokenization to building a real estate empire that accepts crypto payments, from stablecoins, memecoins, DeFi, NFTs to Bitcoin mining, the Trump family is embedding cryptocurrency into every corner of its business and political landscape in his own way. The crypto industry has never been so deeply intertwined with a U.S. president and his family as it is today.

But even though these projects lack originality, Trump continues to sweep through the crypto market with an Old School corporate takeover approach using his personal influence and emotional incitement ability. Whether you are a builder, trader, or project team, it is almost impossible to ignore the momentum the Trump family has stirred up in the crypto world. This great leap forward by the Trump family is not just a show; it may herald the narrative center of the next cycle, no longer solely defined by developers.

Sources: Yahoo Finance, MZIQ