Trump media and Technology Group is a publicly traded company with US President Donald Trump and his family owning a majority stake and has raised $2.5 billion to accumulate the “Bitcoin Treasury Department.”
On Monday, in response to a report from the Financial Times, TMTG initially denied considering any such operations. The company reportedly said, “The Financial Times let stupid authors listen to even mute sources.” But Trump’s media and tech group seem to have changed its tune.
TMTG confirmed in a press release Tuesday that it has agreed to sell $1.5 billion worth of equity and assume further $1 billion in debt and plans to use the proceeds to add a large amount of bitcoin to its balance sheet.
The transaction allows TMTG to compete with increasingly stable Bitcoin accumulation inventory, which can be used instead of investing in Bitcoin without investors having to deal with cryptocurrencies themselves. In theory, as the price of Bitcoin rises and falls, the same is true for the stock price of companies with a large amount of Bitcoin treasury.
“We see Bitcoin as the highest tool for financial freedom, and now the Trump media will see cryptocurrency as a key part of our assets,” TMTG CEO Devin Nunes said in a statement. “This is an important step for the company to develop into an additional profit that is consistent with the U.S. First Principles, crown jewelry assets to grow into a holding company.”
TMTG’s embrace of cryptocurrencies represents a small part of the more detailed picture: Over the past year, despite alleged abuse of offices and conflicts of interest, Trump and his family have made up nearly every segment of the cryptocurrency market.
In January, on the days ahead of the inauguration, Trump and his wife Melania both issued their own crypto coins, adding billions of dollars in paper net worth. That same month, TMTG announced the launch of its new fintech division, Truth.fi, which soon after has partnered with Crypto Exchange Crypto.com to provide crypto-related investment products to the public. Meanwhile, the president’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have promoted a separate crypto services company, World Liberty Financial, and recently established the Bitcoin mining business, U.S. Bitcoin.
Cryptocurrencies associated with the Trump family have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, partly through the sale of crypto coins to public investments, partly through asset acquisitions in transactions cut with business partners.
“Reviewing some of Donald Trump’s adventures … he essentially brought marketing and built-in audiences in exchange for relatively large cuts,” said Austin Campbell, an adjunct professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business and an adjunct professor with zero knowledge at crypto consult Consultancy. “Bitcoin in America is actually that script.”
In May, Eric Trump announced plans to make U.S. bitcoin public. Like TMTG, the company intends to accumulate large Bitcoin Treasury and turn itself into accumulated inventory of Bitcoin. When he announced the plan, he said: “Our vision for US Bitcoin is to build the most investable Bitcoin accumulation platform in the market.”
