00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes.
00:06Joining me now is my Forbes colleague, staff writer Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for
00:11joining me. Thanks for having me back. Looks like we have another exciting development in
00:16Trump's crypto world to discuss. We certainly do. Another conversation on crypto and President
00:22Trump's involvement. Your headline reads, President Trump's crypto firm expands relationship
00:28with embattled blockchain billionaire. The embattled blockchain billionaire in question
00:33here is Justin Sun. So talk to us about the controversy first that he has found himself
00:38in. So Forbes readers and viewers should be quite familiar with Justin Sun. He is a Chinese
00:45crypto billionaire who famously bought a piece of art that was a banana taped to the wall
00:51and also famously spent about 30 million dollars on Trump's crypto decentralized finance endeavor
01:00when it first launched and also was one of the top owners of the Trump mean coin, which
01:06is a separate Trump crypto endeavor and got himself an invite to dine with Trump at his
01:10D.C. area golf course and tour the White House. And he founded a company, Tron, in the crypto
01:15space. Talk to us about that company. Sure. Tron is a crypto exchange, a blockchain. It's
01:21also what led to his being so wealthy. It's also what has led to his legal problems. In March
01:272023, the Security Exchange Commission here in the United States filed civil charges against
01:32him and the company, alleging market manipulation and selling unregistered securities. Sun denied
01:38the charge. The judge paused the case recently at the request of both parties, a move that the
01:43SEC only agreed to after Sun had gotten personally involved in Trump's crypto business.
01:49And I want to read a really startling fact from your piece. Here's a stat you point out.
01:56In 2024, Tron hosted 58 percent of all illicit crypto activity, the most of any blockchain and
02:03more than Ethereum and Bitcoin combined. That is a lot of illicit activity there. That is,
02:09I mean, over 58 percent. That's the majority of all criminal activity. I mean, have they since
02:15cleaned up their act? What does that look like? Sure. So that the finding is from TRM Labs, which
02:21is a blockchain analysis company. It has gotten a little bit better, largely by working with TRM
02:28Labs. The company said, TRM Labs said to come up with a way to try to keep these illicit transactions
02:34from happening on the blockchain in the first place. Things like doing following know your
02:39customers rules a little bit better. So, yes, it is 58 percent. But the good news is for Tron,
02:44that was actually down from previous years.
02:47We now know, based on your reporting, that World Liberty Financial, the crypto company associated
02:52with the Trump family, is involved with TRON and Justin Sun. Talk to us about that relationship.
02:57So, World Liberty Financial and TRON announced recently that TRON was going to start minting
03:07World Liberty Financial stablecoin USD1 on its blockchain. So, what that means is, it's a lot
03:13of crypto jargon, World Liberty Financial came out with a stablecoin. And that is called USD1.
03:20And it's backed by, it's pegged to the dollar and it's backed by cash reserves and other U.S. treasuries.
03:27So, the way that World Liberty Financial and the Trumps in turn make money from this is that the
03:33more they have, the more of the stablecoin that's minted, the more money they have to invest in these
03:39treasuries. And as the website World Liberty says, the proceeds, the part of the proceeds of the
03:45interest made from these reserves will go to the Trumps. So, now what you basically have is,
03:50TRON, on his blockchain, Justin Sun, is making the currency that helps the Trumps obtain reserves
03:57that they will then profit off of. And so, have the Trumps, have the White House, has World Liberty
04:04Financial responded to you when you've asked about this relationship, given the fact that TRON and,
04:11as well as Justin Sun, have had some issues with the SEC in the past?
04:16So, World Liberty declined to comment this time. TRON and the Trump Organization did not respond to
04:23inquiries. White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly told me in a statement that Trump has no
04:29conflicts of interest because his assets are in a trust managed by his children. Now, the president,
04:34that is true, the president cannot have conflicts of interest. But, you know, saying that it's because
04:38his assets are in a trust managed by his children doesn't matter. You know, it's all of Trump's
04:43assets, or most of his assets, are in the Donald J. Trump revocable trust. He is the only donor to
04:49that trust. He is the only beneficiary of that trust. It is revocable, so he can take money in,
04:54money out of it at any time. And the trustee is coincidentally, he shares almost the same name,
04:59Donald Trump Jr. So, that's just a little bit of window dressing right there.
05:02And one of our colleagues, Dan Alexander, reported earlier this month that President Trump's majority
05:10of his net worth is thanks to his involvement in crypto. So, he's made over $3 million in the crypto
05:16space. Financially, what does this expanded relationship here mean for President Trump?
05:21It's a growth opportunity. The more of USD 1 that Tron mints, the more the reserves that World
05:29Liberty Financial will have to try to make interest off of, and the more interest it'll have to then
05:34go ahead and pay out to Donald Trump and his family. And so, how much, remind us,
05:39how much has President Trump made so far with his involvement in World Liberty Financial?
05:43Yeah, he's doing pretty well with that. He came out with a financial disclosure,
05:49I guess it was about two weeks ago at this point, that said he made $57.4 million from World Liberty
05:56Financial in 2024. And keep in mind, the venture only launched in September, and the stablecoin
06:02didn't even come out till this year. So, that's not included on it. That is just $57.4 million from
06:08selling tokens in the decentralized finance project to begin with. So, just in a few months, he did quite
06:14well. Based on our conversations in the past couple of weeks, it seems like World Liberty Financial is
06:19really expanding, and this isn't their first relationship with a controversial blockchain.
06:24Remind us of the others. Sure. As we reported earlier, it is also trading on KuCoin, which is an
06:30exchange that was recently banned from the United States after admitting to anti-money laundering
06:35violations, and it agreed to pay $300 million in penalties. And it's also trading on Binance,
06:41which admitted in a November 2023 pre-deal with the Justice Department to anti-money laundering and
06:47sanctions violations, agreed to pay a whopping $4 billion in penalties. Days after the stablecoins
06:54started trading on Binance, though, the SEC dropped a separate lawsuit it had brought against the front.
07:00And so, I want to zoom out for just a moment here. President Trump wants to be the first crypto
07:05president. He vowed to make the United States the crypto capital of the world. I mean, when you're
07:10looking at this relationship, World Liberty Financial, with this blockchain, what does that indicate to
07:17you about where he's going policy-wise when it comes to crypto? Well, we have wonderful synergies
07:24going on between the Trump administration and the Trump organization, to use that polite term.
07:30We're seeing him working off each other. You know, what comes out of the administration
07:35will benefit his organization. And yeah, I mean, he's absolutely trying to make it as crypto-friendly
07:41as possible, which is a 180 from where he previously was on it. But somewhere along the
07:45line, you know, Donald Trump realized there was money to be made out of crypto, which he referred
07:49to as in-air previously, I believe. I think one person's synergy is another person's conflict of
07:55interest. What are lawmakers thinking about this synergy? Republicans don't seem to have many problems
08:02with it. I think some of them said it may give him a little bit of pause. You know, there is an issue
08:06where pro-crypto people are trying to make the industry look legitimate. And that's one of the main
08:15points of this Genius Act that recently passed the Senate. They want to have some regulations in there.
08:19They want to have the right regulations, though. They don't want it to be regulated too heavily.
08:23So they're trying to encourage people to invest and think that it is a viable asset without really
08:29hampering their ability to do business. And they're finding that Donald Trump's synergies
08:35are causing some issues with voters and that they're finding that it's really giving crypto,
08:41you know, it's not helping him appear any more legitimate. And then, of course,
08:45you find Democrats who are rather upset by this. Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon,
08:49has introduced the End Crypto Corruption Act, which would ban presidents and other top officials
08:55from endorsing their own crypto assets. So I'm pretty clear that's targeted towards our current
09:01president, although who knows, you know, if he makes a lot of money off it, maybe we'll find future
09:05presidents doing that question. Well, Zach Everson, per usual, I appreciate the conversation. Thanks for
09:10joining me. My pleasure. I'm sure we'll be back to talk about crypto sometime soon.
09:25Thanks.
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