Trump made more than $1bn from crypto in first year back in office

Trump made more than bn from crypto in first year back in office
Trump made more than bn from crypto in first year back in office

US President Donald Trump made more than $1bn (£750m) last year from business dealings in cryptocurrency, according to his mandatory financial report for 2025.

In a 927-page disclosure, he reported $635m in royalties from a Trump meme coin that has plunged in value since he launched it days before taking office.

He also reported over $500m in income from World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm founded by his own sons and the children of his special envoy, Steve Witkoff.

He earned millions more from real estate and Trump-themed items. But the White House denied he was profiting from the presidency.

The earnings from his latest financial disclosure far outpace the previous ones for 2024, when Trump disclosed over $600m of income.

But the White House, which has repeatedly emphasised that Trump has placed his businesses in a trust managed by his sons, again denied any conflict of interest.

White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said the president had proudly made the US “the crypto capital of the world”.

“Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged – or will ever engage – in conflicts of interest,” she said in a statement.

She added: “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people – and any so-called ‘reporters’ pushing otherwise are recycling the same, tired, false narrative that Democrats and the legacy media have been pushing for a decade.”

The president himself has also highlighted that he is not subject to federal conflict of interest laws.

Trump once criticised cryptocurrency, famously calling Bitcoin a “scam” in 2021 and a “disaster waiting to happen”.

But, during his presidential campaign three years later, Trump said he wanted to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet”. One of his first actions when he returned to the White House last year was an executive order to “support the responsible growth” of the crypto industry.

Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer under George W Bush, told the BBC it was “extraordinary”, that Trump had made $1bn from crypto.

“Of course it’s a conflict of interest,” he said.

Will Walker-Arnott, director of private clients at Raymond James Financial Group, said: “His approach, I suppose, is in contrast to previous presidents in terms of money making.

“Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust and George W Bush sold his interest in the Texas Rangers before becoming president, but Trump seems to be operating in a very different manner and seems to be making a lot of money through this family crypto company.”

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