(L-R) Eric Trump, former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. attend the 23rd anniversary ceremony of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center at Ground Zero in New York City on September 11, 2024 September 11th.
Adam Gray | AFP | Getty Images
A political action committee supporting former President Donald Trump has raised approximately $7.5 million in cryptocurrency.
Trump 47 joint fundraising committee donors donated Bitcoin, Ethereum and Rippleand stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar tether According to the Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s campaigns for Republican presidential candidates Archive Submitted Tuesday.
The latest filing covers donations from July 1 to Sept. 30, but the figures include cumulative contributions, the PAC said.
With just three weeks left before the 2024 election, and with the race almost in a stalemate according to polling averages, Trump is counting on a flood of money from the cryptocurrency community. The former president is positioning himself as a pro-cryptocurrency candidate in this election, contrary to his previous stance during his time in the White House. In May, he became the first major presidential candidate to accept donations from digital tokens.
Nearly half of all corporate money flowing into elections came from the cryptocurrency industry, According to a recent report From the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen. The money was raised from multiple donors, with Coinbase, Ripple and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz accounting for the majority of commercial donations. The industry raised roughly 13 times as much money as it raised in the last presidential election year.
Documents show that at least 18 donors donated more than $5.5 million in Bitcoin to Trump47. Seven other people donated approximately $1.5 million in ether.
Contributors come from more than 15 states, including some battlegrounds, as well as the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Their careers include software engineer at Lockheed Martin, sales engineer at Duthie Power Services, and producer at Esperanza Entertainment.
David Bailey, CEO of media group BTC Inc., donated more than $498,000 in Bitcoin. Bailey is part of a small group of Bitcoin enthusiasts who taught Trump all about Bitcoin and helped transform him from skeptic to evangelist. The culmination of this process was Trump hosting the largest Bitcoin conference of the year in Nashville in July.
Trump said during his keynote speech that his campaign had raised $25 million from the crypto industry, but he did not specify the split between digital tokens and U.S. dollar donations.
New donors include Chase Herro, one of the co-founders of the Trump family’s new cryptocurrency initiative, World Liberty Financial. The platform, which is described as a decentralized bank that encourages customers to borrow and invest in cryptocurrencies, launched a token sale on Tuesday.
So far, more than $10.2 million worth of WLFI tokens have been sold, well below the initial $300 million fundraising goal. The launch was beset by technical issues, including repeated crashes of the website hosting the sale.
Mike Belshe, CEO of digital asset security company BitGo, donated nearly $100,000 in Bitcoin.
Brian Murray, a partner at Craft Ventures, donated $6,560 in Bitcoin. Craft was founded by pro-Trump venture capitalist David Sacks.
Kresus Labs founder Trevor Traina donated more than $25,000 in ether, Chainstone Labs CEO Bruce Fenton donated $60,000 in bitcoin, and Gary Cardone of Cardone Digital Ventures donated more than $840,000 in bitcoin.
According to previous reports by CNBC, Ripple’s legal director Stuart Alderoty donated $300,000 in XRP. Alderotti attended a Trump fundraiser hosted by Saks in San Francisco in June.
Alderoty is at odds with Ripple’s billionaire co-founder Chris Larsen, who donated $1 million worth of XRP tokens to Future Forward, a mega-political operation supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for the White House committee. Future Forward began accepting cryptocurrency donations in September.
While Larson agrees with the cryptocurrency industry’s criticism of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and the Biden administration’s aggressive approach to companies in the space, the Ripple chairman said he has more confidence in Harris, in part because She’s from the Bay Area.
“She knows people who have grown up in the innovation economy their whole lives,” Larson told CNBC this week. “So I think she fundamentally understands that, and I think the Biden people just haven’t noticed, Or maybe there just isn’t a connection between empowering workers and ensuring American champions dominate their industries.”
In addition to Larsen, Uniswap legal head Marvin Amory Donate to the Harris Action Fund. Like Ripple, Uniswap faces accusations of violating U.S. securities laws.
Backing Trump are billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who each donated a combined total of nearly $1.1 million. Some of the funds were refunded in September because the amount exceeded the maximum allowed.
watch: Kamala Harris supports cryptocurrency regulatory framework
About The Author
