Donald Trump's Crypto Exploitation

Trump has received $635 million in royalties through a company called Celebration Coins tied to his $TRUMP meme coin.

Celebration Coins is a private limited liability company (LLC) established in April 2021 as an affiliate of CIC Digital LLC. Donald Trump is listed as CIC Digital’s manager, president, secretary, and treasurer.

Fight Fight Fight LLC is a company co-owned by Bill Zanker and Celebration Cards LLC that co-developed the $TRUMP meme coin alongside CIC Digital LLC. Launched on January 17, 2025, the company and its affiliates controlled an 80% stake in the initial $TRUMP token supply.

//Who owns the underlying corporate entity of the coin’s ecosystem? Celebration Cards LLC is an entity registered in Wyoming by Andrew Pierce. Wyoming does not require LLCs to list the names of their actual owners, members, or managers on public records. Entities like Celebration Cards LLC are formed using third-party corporate paralegals or registered agents (such as Andrew Pierce or Cloud Peak Law). This process effectively creates an opaque corporate shield, making it incredibly difficult for the public to discern the ultimate beneficial owners or financials. Wyoming levies no state personal income tax and no state corporate income tax.

//Where’s all this money coming from? Investigative analyses of the token’s top holders indicate that a massive portion of the money originates outside the U.S. An analysis by CBS News revealed that at least 52 of the top 100 $TRUMP token holders moved their funds through foreign crypto exchanges like Binance, Bybit, and MEXC, which explicitly bar U.S. customers.

The Financial Services Committee published a report calculating that at least $436 million of Trump’s realized crypto profits originated directly from foreign interests.

High-profile foreign figures have openly bought into the ecosystem. For example, Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun publicly participated in the token’s private galas and events. He had also invested approximately $75 million in the Trump family’s separate World Liberty Financial venture. The SEC had paused its enforcement case against Sun earlier that year.

//What does buying the token get you? The structure of the meme coin allows foreign entities to purchase large quantities of the token on the open market. Top token holders are frequently rewarded with direct, face-to-face access to the President at exclusive galas at his private golf clubs.

Foreign nationals generally cannot contribute to U.S. election campaigns, but buying a cryptocurrency token on the open market is a different kind of transaction. Unlike campaign donations, the buyers’ identities are not necessarily publicly disclosed.

On top of that, the Trump Organization and its affiliates built mechanisms into the token’s smart contracts to capture revenue from transaction and licensing fees. Every time someone buys or sells the token on the open market, a percentage is routed directly back to his entities.

While a Chainalysis study noted that a small group of early deployment wallets pocketed hundreds of millions in returns, retail investors on the losing end of the trade absorbed roughly $3.81 billion to $4 billion in total losses.

He has effectively monetized a speculative financial instrument where public trading activity feeds his personal bank account while actively shaping federal crypto policy.

Sources
With Receipts - Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure, identified filing entry
Official $TRUMP Coin Site
CBS News Investigation
House Oversight Report
Wallet-level Profit/Loss Analysis
Reuters Investigation Into Transaction Fees
CNBC Report on $TRUMP Losses