(L-R) Eric Trump, former U.S. president, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. on the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center at Ground Zero in New York City Attending the commemorative ceremony September 11, 2024.
Adam Gray | AFP | Getty Images
A political action committee supporting former President Donald Trump has raised about $7.5 million in cryptocurrencies.
Donors to the Trump 47 Community Chest Committee have invested in the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign in Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, as well as the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin Tether, according to a Federal Election Commission filing Tuesday. Donated USDC.
PAC said its latest filing covers donations from July 1 to September 30, but the numbers also include cumulative donations.
With the 2024 election just three weeks away, and polling averages showing the race to be a virtual dead heat, President Trump is banking on significant funding from the crypto community. The former president has positioned himself as a pro-cryptocurrency candidate in this election, a reversal from his previous position during his time in the White House. In May, he became the first major presidential candidate to accept donations in digital tokens.
A recent report from the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen found that nearly half of the corporate money flowing into elections comes from the cryptocurrency industry. The amount was raised from a variety of donors, with Coinbase, Ripple, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz accounting for most of the corporate donations. The industry raised about 13 times the amount it raised last presidential election year.
At least 18 donors donated more than $5.5 million in Bitcoin to Trump, 47, according to the filing. Seven more people donated about $1.5 million in ether.
Contributors came from more than 15 states, including several battleground states, as well as the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. Their occupations include Lockheed Martin Software Engineer, Dassey Power Services Sales Engineer, and Esperanza Entertainment Producer.
David Bailey, CEO of media group BTC, has donated more than $498,000 in Bitcoin. Bailey was part of a small army of Bitcoin fanatics who educated President Trump on all things Bitcoin and helped turn him from skeptic to evangelist. The process culminated in President Trump headlining the year’s largest Bitcoin conference in Nashville in July.
President Trump said in his keynote speech that his campaign had raised $25 million from the cryptocurrency industry, but did not reveal the distribution of digital tokens and dollar donations.
Among the new donors is Chase Herro, one of the co-founders of the Trump family’s new cryptocurrency project, World Liberty Financial. The platform, described as a decentralized bank where customers are encouraged to borrow, lend and invest in cryptocurrencies, launched a token sale on Tuesday.
So far, $10.2 million worth of WLFI tokens have been sold, far short of the original funding goal of $300 million. The launch was plagued by technical issues, including frequent crashes of the website where the sale was taking place.
Mike Belshe, CEO of digital asset security company BitGo, donated about $100,000 in Bitcoin.
Brian Murray, a partner at Craft Ventures, donated $6,560 in Bitcoin. Kraft was founded by Trump-supporting venture capitalist David Sachs.
Kresus Labs founder Trevor Traina donated over $25,000 in Ether, Chainstone Labs CEO Bruce Fenton donated $60,000 in Bitcoin, and Gary Cardone of Cardone Digital Ventures donated over $840,000 in Bitcoin. did.
As CNBC previously reported, Ripple’s head of legal affairs, Stuart Alderroti, donated $300,000 in XRP. Alderroti attended a Trump fundraiser hosted by Sachs in San Francisco in June.
Alderoti is at odds with Ripple’s billionaire co-founder Chris Larsen, who gave $1 million worth of XRP tokens to Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ White House bid. I am doing it. Future Forward began accepting donations in cryptocurrency in September.
While Larsen shares the crypto industry’s criticism of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and the aggressive approach the Biden administration has taken toward companies in the crypto industry, the Ripple chairman believes that Harris He said he trusts Harris more because he is from the area.
“She’s known people her whole life who grew up in the innovation economy,” Larsen said in an interview with CNBC this week. “So I think she understands it at a fundamental level. Either the Biden people simply weren’t paying attention, or the workers-empowering and American champions are trying to protect their industries. I think it’s just that they didn’t understand the relationship between ensuring control.” ”
In addition to Larsen, Uniswap’s head of legal affairs, Marvin Anmoli, also contributed money to the Harris Action Fund. Like Ripple, Uniswap is also battling claims that it violated U.S. securities laws.
On the pro-Trump side, billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are leading the charge, each contributing a total of nearly $1.1 million. Some of it was refunded in September because it exceeded the allowed limit.
Attention: Kamala Harris supports crypto regulatory framework
