Crypto Developer: The Trump Family's Coin Minting Real Estate Business

Original Article Title: "Trump's Son's Crypto Business Acumen"

Original Article Author: Bright, Foresight News

During Token2049 Dubai, the Trump family made another move.

On the evening of April 29, as reported by The National, Eric Trump, Executive Vice President of The Trump Organization, revealed that The Trump Organization will partner with the London-listed company Dar Global to launch a $1 billion development project in Dubai, including a Trump-branded hotel, residential units, and a club. The tower will be located at the entrance of Sheikh Zayed Road in downtown Dubai and is expected to be completed within five years. This project will accept cryptocurrency payments. While this is not the first real estate venture of the Trump family in the Middle East, it is the first building where Eric Trump, the Trump family's second son, has explicitly stated a tie to cryptocurrency.

On April 30, according to The Block, Trump Media & Technology Group plans to launch the Truth Social utility token. The token will be integrated into the Truth digital wallet, initially used to pay for Truth+ subscription fees, and could expand to cover other products and services within the Truth Social ecosystem in the future.

The Trump family, which has tasted the sweet fruits of political influence in the crypto space, continues to expand its crypto footprint. Eric Trump, in particular, has emerged as the crypto "vanguard" within the Trump family.

A Crypto Career with Smooth Sailing

In 2006, Eric Trump graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor's degree in Finance and Management. That same year, he joined The Trump Organization as Executive Vice President of Development and Acquisitions. In 2012, Forbes named Eric Trump one of the "30 Under 30" in real estate. When Trump assumed the U.S. presidency for the first time in 2017, he retained ownership of The Trump Organization but handed control of this vast business empire to his eldest son, Donald Jr., and second son, Eric. Without any dramatic or sensational twists, Eric Trump has always diligently worked for the Trump family. And now, as the Executive Vice President of The Trump Organization, Eric Trump continues to prominently represent the Trump family's foray into crypto.

From the 2024 Abu Dhabi Bitcoin MENA to the 2025 Token2049 Dubai, in less than a year, Eric Trump has accumulated titles from various crypto companies. Not only has he served as an ambassador in the directly affiliated World Liberty Financial and as Chief Strategic Officer in the new Bitcoin mining company American Bitcoin, but he has also been hired as an advisor by well-known crypto companies like Japan's "MicroStrategy" Metaplanet.

In fact, serving as an advisor to become a crypto giant is just a commonplace matter for Eric Trump, who is backed by the Trump family. With the halo of "my dad is the president," Eric Trump can easily chat with Michael Saylor at the Mar-a-Lago estate. What truly attracts attention from the outside world is Eric Trump's "extremely close" attitude towards crypto.

Eric Trump once said in an interview with CNBC, "You will find that cryptocurrency is faster, more practical, more transparent, and much lower in cost." Unlike Donald Trump sitting on the presidential throne, the less restricted Eric Trump is seen as a "glove puppet" directly implementing the Trump business will. He has repeatedly expressed his bullishness on crypto in social media and public speeches, stating that "Bitcoin is one of the greatest stores of value" and "now is a good time to bet on cryptocurrency."

"Now, I know almost everyone in this industry more or less," Eric Trump said. "A few years ago, I fell in love with this industry and then dived into it headfirst."

The "Two-Way Rush" of Interests

However, Eric Trump, coming from a business family, has inherited a speculative style. Behind his "enthusiastic bullishness," perhaps there is more of the Trump family's further money-grabbing plan.

In the traditional financial field, the influence of the U.S. President is still subject to a relatively complete legal system and financial institutional balance, and the intricate Wall Street power also exerts considerable influence on the White House. In 2022, about two years after the end of Trump's first term as president, two subsidiaries of the Trump Group were convicted by a New York jury on numerous charges, including tax fraud, falsifying business records, and conspiracy. All 17 charges were found guilty three weeks after Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 election. Meanwhile, a Florida bank named Capital One closed over 300 Trump Group bank accounts immediately after the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

Therefore, before Trump returns to the White House, the Trump Group announced a new ethical plan, stating that it will restrict Trump's involvement in management decisions and other business aspects during his presidential term. Eric Trump publicly stated that the Trump Group is "perhaps the most restricted company on earth."

In contrast, the cryptocurrency field, which operates on the regulatory edge and has abundant liquidity, has become a favorite of the Trump family. Just the Trump and Melania meme coins alone have added billions of dollars to the family's balance sheet wealth. The Trump family has given up skimming oil directly from the intricate Wall Street power and instead entered the crypto field in the guise of protecting financial innovation and crypto liberators. Eric Trump openly stated that his entry into the cryptocurrency field was not a financial gamble but a form of resistance. This move began with what he called a "war on the industry." He declared that banks are closing accounts, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is cracking down on trading platforms, and cryptocurrency users are being "deprived of bank accounts" simply for holding cryptocurrency.

However, during the second term of President Trump, who held significant power, the U.S. cryptocurrency field did indeed continue to break free from constraints. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) were previously very strict in their scrutiny of cryptocurrency trading platforms and projects. However, since Trump took office, the U.S. has taken a big step forward in cryptocurrency regulation, successively abolishing the "Defi Broker Rule," dropping the lawsuit against XRP, and releasing the Silk Road founder, among other actions.

It can be said that in the U.S. political world where power and money are intertwined, the Trump family, with a sharp businessman's eye, chose the easiest path to riches.

The Legendary Reverse "Pump-and-Dump King"

However, Eric Trump's three high-profile calls in 2025 had an eerie cause-and-effect relationship with the market's significant downturn:

On February 3, Eric posted on X platform, stating, "In my opinion, now is a good time to accumulate $ETH. You can thank me later." At that time, the Ethereum price was hovering around $2,900, and the market sentiment was somewhat optimistic due to the Trump family's World Liberty Financial (WLFI) project. However, within 48 hours of the call, the ETH price plummeted to $2,000, a drop of over 30%. On-chain data showed that WLFI transferred around $300 million worth of crypto assets to Coinbase Prime on the day of the call, including 66,000 ETH.

Then, on February 25, when the Bitcoin price was approaching $89,000, Eric once again spoke up, advising investors to "buy BTC on dips, as long-term holding is the way to go." The result was that the next day, the Bitcoin price sharply dropped to $78,258, a one-day decline of 12%. Lookonchain's analysis showed that WLFI sold around 12,000 BTC (approximately $1 billion) before and after the call, aligning closely with the market's selling pressure peak.

On March 2, after the Trump administration announced the exploration of cryptocurrency assets as a possible national reserve, Eric quickly followed up, calling for "long-term holding of cryptocurrency, as the future is decentralized." Even tweets on the Trump X account announcing the national reserve had an undeniable connection to Eric. However, the next day, Ethereum surged before crashing again by 17.5%, with the decline widening to 30% within a week, reaching a low of $1,410. On-chain analysts found that WLFI sold a total of 86,000 ETH (about $235 million) during this period, with a significant price difference between their cost basis ($3,354) and the market price ($1,550), once again exposing their awkward position of "buying high and selling low." On the X platform, the topic of NeverTrustEric surpassed even #Bitcoin in popularity, with community members spontaneously compiling the "Eric Pump-and-Dump Index" as a market risk warning signal.

At one point, WLFI became the market's scapegoat, with the selloff resulting in a book loss of over a billion dollars, raising questions about off-exchange profit-taking through derivatives hedging. WLFI's business model was once again criticized—WLFI had raised $550 million through the issuance of governance tokens, but token holders only had voting rights and no dividend rights, with the official website explicitly stating that "the purchase of tokens should not be for profit-seeking purposes." "This is fundamentally a capital game that does not require accountability to investors," commented cryptocurrency compliance firm Chainalysis, stating that "political dynasties are leveraging regulatory gray areas to transform social media influence into financial harvesting tools."

However, this did not affect the ongoing construction of the Dubai Trump Tower. Eric Trump is aware that the crypto world needs the Trump family's political influence, and he will continue to promote it.

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