Trump Media and Technology Group, a publicly traded company in which US president Donald Trump and his family own a majority stake, has raised $2.5 billion to accumulate a “bitcoin treasury.”
On Monday, in response to a report by the Financial Times, TMTG initially denied contemplating any such maneuver. “The Financial Times has dumb writers listening to even dumber sources,” the company reportedly said. But Trump Media and Technology Group appears to have since changed its tune.
In a press release on Tuesday, TMTG confirmed that it has agreed to sell $1.5 billion worth of equity and take on a further $1 billion in debt—and plans to use the proceeds to add vast quantities of bitcoin to its balance sheet.
The deal puts TMTG in competition with a growing stable of bitcoin accumulation stocks, which act as a substitute of sorts for investing in bitcoin, without investors having to handle crypto themselves. In theory, as the price of bitcoin rises and falls, so should the stock price of the companies with large bitcoin treasuries.
“We view bitcoin as an apex instrument of financial freedom, and now Trump Media will hold cryptocurrency as a crucial part of our assets,” said TMTG CEO Devin Nunes in a statement. “It’s a big step forward in the company’s plans to evolve into a holding company by acquiring additional profit-generating, crown jewel assets consistent with America First principles.”
TMTG’s embrace of crypto represents a small part of a more elaborate picture: Within the past year, Trump and his family have forged into almost every segment of the crypto market, despite a chorus of complaints relating to alleged abuses of office and conflicts of interest.
In January, in the days leading up to the inauguration, Trump and his wife Melania both issued their own crypto coins, adding billions of dollars to their paper net worth. That same month, TMTG announced the launch of Truth.Fi, its new fintech division, which partnered shortly thereafter with crypto exchange Crypto.com with a view to offering crypto-related investment products to the public. The president’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. meanwhile, have promoted a separate crypto services company, World Liberty Financial, and recently established a bitcoin mining business, American Bitcoin.
The crypto ventures associated with the Trump family have raised hundreds of millions of dollars—partly by selling crypto coins to the investing public and partly by acquiring assets in deals cut with business partners.
“Look back at some of Donald Trump’s ventures over time … he essentially brings the marketing and a built-in audience in return for a relatively large cut,” says Austin Campbell, adjunct professor at NYU Stern School of Business and managing partner at crypto consultancy Zero Knowledge. “American Bitcoin is literally that playbook.”
In May, Eric Trump announced plans to take American Bitcoin public. Like TMTG, the company intends to accrue a large bitcoin treasury and turn itself into a bitcoin accumulation stock. “Our vision for American Bitcoin is to create the most investable bitcoin accumulation platform in the market,” he said when he announced the plan.