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The value of President Donald J. Trump’s cryptocurrency-linked ventures has fallen sharply in recent months, erasing hundreds of millions of dollars from the family’s estimated fortune and underscoring the volatility of the digital assets that helped drive their recent financial gains.
Market data and corporate disclosures reviewed by Bloomberg [ [link removed] ]show that the family’s net worth has declined from about $7.7 billion in early September to roughly $6.7 billion, a shift that coincides with significant decreases in the prices of companies, tokens and financial holdings tied to Mr. Trump and his adult sons.
The movements in those assets come during a wider downturn across digital currencies that Bloomberg reports has erased more than $1 trillion in value. The Bloomberg figures reflect the performance of entities in which the Trump family holds equity or token positions, as well as publicly available information about recent valuations.
A major portion of the decline involves Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of the Truth Social platform. Bloomberg reports that the company’s shares have fallen about 66 percent in the past year and reached a record low last week. The president’s stake, held in a trust overseen by Donald Trump Jr., has dropped by approximately $800 million since September. According to a July statement cited by Bloomberg, the company invested about $2 billion in Bitcoin and related securities, including options. Its holdings include roughly 11,500 Bitcoin purchased at an average price of about $115,000 each, resulting in an unrealized loss of around 25 percent based on current prices. Trump Media also holds CRO, a token issued by Crypto.com. Bloomberg reports that the CRO position, valued at about $147 million at the end of September, has since lost roughly half its value. The two firms are planning to introduce a prediction-market platform called Truth Predict.
World Liberty Financial, another entity associated with the family, has also experienced declines. Bloomberg reports that the company’s WLFI token dropped from about 26 cents in early September to roughly 15 cents today. The Trump family’s locked holdings of the token were previously valued at nearly $6 billion and are now worth about $3.15 billion on paper. Because those tokens cannot currently be traded, they are not included in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index calculation of the family’s wealth. In August, World Liberty sold WLFI tokens to Alt5 Sigma Corp., generating $750 million in cash and an equity stake. Bloomberg reports that Alt5’s shares have fallen about 75 percent since the deal was announced, reducing the value of the Trump family’s stake in Alt5 by about $220 million. Bloomberg’s calculations indicate that the family received about 75 percent of the proceeds from that token sale, totaling about $500 million, and earned roughly $400 million from prior WLFI sales. A spokesperson for World Liberty told Bloomberg that the company maintains long-term confidence in the technology underlying digital assets.
Another area of decline is American Bitcoin Corp., a mining venture formed through a set of transactions with Hut 8 Corp. Bloomberg reports that Eric Trump owns about 7.5 percent of the company and that Donald Trump Jr. holds a smaller, undisclosed stake. Shares of the company peaked at $9.31 in early September, valuing Eric Trump’s holdings at roughly $630 million, but have since fallen by more than half, reducing that valuation by more than $300 million. According to Bloomberg, an investor who purchased the stock when it first became publicly available would now be facing losses of around 45 percent.
The family’s cryptocurrency holdings also include the Trump-branded memecoin, announced during inauguration weekend. Bloomberg reports that the token has declined by about 25 percent since late August and that a buyer who purchased near its peak would have seen nearly the entire value of that investment erased. Data cited by Bloomberg from Gauntlet, a risk-modeling firm, shows that wallets associated with the coin’s creation held about 17 million tokens, with another 17 million moved to exchanges. Nearly 90 million tokens vested in July. Bloomberg’s wealth index attributes roughly 40 percent of the total token supply to the Trump family through World Liberty, valuing those holdings at about $310 million, down around $117 million since late August. Bloomberg also reports that the vesting event unlocked nearly 90 million new tokens for insiders, about 40 percent of which are attributed to the family and valued at roughly $220 million. It is unclear, Bloomberg said, whether the family has sold any tokens since July.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Eric Trump said he viewed the recent declines as “a great buying opportunity” and that he remains “bullish on the future of cryptocurrency.”
Brian Daitzman is the Editor of The Intellectualist [ [link removed] ]. Read the original article here. [ [link removed] ]
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