The newly disclosed scale of President Donald Trump’s personal cryptocurrency-related profits since taking office last year comes right at a sensitive moment for Senate negotiations on a major digital assets bill that GOP leaders want to bring to the floor this month.
Trump’s potential crypto conflicts have been a sticking point in negotiations over a crypto market structure bill that is pending in the Senate.
Democrats want an ethics provision to curb the ability of public officials to profit from sponsoring or endorsing cryptocurrencies, and the two sides have been squabbling over how to word the language without losing the Trump administration’s otherwise strong support for the bill.
Meanwhile, the news broke that Trump made more than $1.4 billion from his family’s crypto ventures last year, according to his annual financial disclosure filed with the Office of Government Ethics.
That total includes $635 million in royalties related to “Celebration Coins” tied to Trump’s memecoin business; $527 million in proceeds from sales of tokens distributed by World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm owned by the Trump family; and about $263 million related to stakes in holding companies that own WLF and its stablecoin business.
