RHETORIC OVER REALITY: DISMANTLING THE ANTI-TRUMP US2.2BN REVENUE NARRATIVE
One of these rare thought leaders is lawyer Michael Han who writes regularly. I enjoy reading his posts even though I disagree often with his views when it comes to politics. The difference between Michael and someone writing like me, is he writes from a position of authority. That behoves upon him more responsibility in content presentation. Perhaps that's why the kiasu, kiasi, bochap Singaporean mentality holds sway and those who can, avoid the bother, of sharing their wisdom. Singapore is poorer for that. .
From my perspective, a post that carries authority has to be challenged if I disagree with the contents factually. I like to parse Michael's post here in two layers:
One - the style of the writing, not in the sense of an English teacher but in trying to lay bare how styles influence outcomes of a reader's understanding. In today's social media, manipulative styles influence minds, not the facts.
Two - the facts (which were omitted) behind the various points raised.
There are two ways we can express ourselves. For example, I could summarise the post and say:
"The article is a gerrymandering of rhetorical emotional entrapments masquerading as a disciplined critique."
OR
"The piece presents itself as a disciplined analysis, but much of it is actually rhetorically sequencing and emotional framing designed to lead the reader to predetermined conclusions."
The first statement gives the impression I am reacting to the post, the second reflects I am dissecting the arguments. The strongest criticism is usually the one that sounds controlled rather than angry. The first statement is my comment in Michael's post, that was a reaction. I endeavor to be guided in style by the second statement in this article.
The link to Michael's Facebook post is here. For reader's convenience, I repost ad-verbatim below. I suggest you read the original post first. I warrant you will most probably be persuaded, Language can be persuasive and manipulative, sometimes without our even realising it. Then read my "style critique" and see if it breaks the spell on you. Follow through with my "factual critique" and see where you stand.
The Style CritiqueThis part of my criticism of Michael's post has nothing to do with the anti-Trump posture of the post but it's substitution of advocacy theatre for disciplined reasoning.
The entire article reads like a closing submission in a court with a jury, crafted to emotionally convict rather than analytically persuade. Nearly every paragraph relies on one or more classic courtroom techniques -- insinuation without direct allegation, emotional framing, guilt by association, selective sequencing, loaded adjectives, rhetorical metaphors and moral contamination through religious imagery.
We should train ourselves to distinguish between:
- suspicion and proof
- appearance and illegality
- correlation and causation
- valuation and realised income
- ethical concern and criminal conduct.
The article repeatedly collapses all these categories together.
Let's look at the opener:
"This is the real Art of the Deal, and Trump is not even hiding it. It’s out in the open. His annual disclosure was released on 30 June and it’s an abundant harvest. His haul in total just for 2025 is US$2.2 billion (S$2.85b)."
A trained professional mind should immediately clarify whether the US$2.2bn refers to realised income, paper valuation, ownership stakes, estimated ranges, asset appreciation, licensing rights or business-linked holdings. Instead, the figure is presented in the most emotionally explosive way possible, because the rhetorical objective is obvious -- overwhelm the reader with scale before careful distinctions can be made. "Out in the open" suggests to readers he failed to hide it when the fact is, public disclosure is a routine mandatory requirement on senior government officials in the US. We can only wish we have similar requirement in Singapore.
The crypto section is even more revealing. The post strongly implies corruption by placing deregulation beside family profit, but never actually establishes a corrupt transaction, quid pro quo, or unlawful act. The reader is simply invited to "connect the dots". In fact, the comments about the crypto deal is totally mis-characterised.
This is not rigorous argumentation, It is prosecutorial mood-building. You see repeated use of words like -- "curiously", "harvest", "golden pal", "prosperity gospel", "billionaire savior", :"financial nirvana", "harvester-reaper-in-chief" -- all clearly demonstrating the whole exercise is a literary condemnation rather than honest analytical precision. The piece becomes intellectually weak.
If the argument is that American politics broadly enables influence monetisation, then an attempt should be made to make the case structurally serious. It should place Trump's "misdeeds" in an elaboration of lobbying culture, revolving doors, post-office enrichment, speaking circuits, foundation networks, book deals, politically connected investment access or regulatory capture. Instead, Trump is treated as though he invented the fusion of politics, celebrity, influence and wealth extraction. That is historically shallow.
Even more problematic, if you have noticed, is the constant clipping between ethics and illegality. Professional minds know raising ethical concerns is not remotely the same thing as proving corruption. Yet the post carefully uses language that allows maximum insinuation with minimum evidentially burden.
That is advocacy technique.
If you have been observant, you may see the repetitive structural style:
- Mention a financial benefit -- then place it near a political action. (The article at the centre of the recently concluded Bloomberg defamation trial demonstrates this kind of style.)
- Insert a suggest wording -- but avoid making a fully precise allegation.
- Let the reader emotionally infer guilt.
That is courtroom rhetoric, not balance analysis. It is manipulative .
The religious framing is perhaps the most revealing part. Michael repeatedly invokes Christianity, biblical symbolism, and "prosperity gospel" imagery, not because these strengthen the factual argument, but because they heighten moral disgust. It is emotional leverage disguised as commentary. Can we consider it fortunate he did not bring in the "white man" argument?
Ironically, while condemning Trump for spectacle and branding, the article itself depends heavily on spectacle and branding. The prose signals this shift from analysis into performance -- "a crab will only walk crooked", "financial nirvana", etc. At that point, one is no longer reading institutional critique, but political theatre.
Overall, the post relies heavily on caricature, emotional sequencing, while avoiding the harder work of demonstrating actual legal misconduct with precision.
Trump is not beyond criticism, but criticism becomes less credible when the writer appears more committed to rhetorical conviction than factual discipline.
Everyone has a right to criticise Trump. But professional critiques should impose intellectual discipline like defining standards clearly, separating evidence from inference, distinguishing optics from violations, and avoid presenting insinuations as though it were proof.
The post is typical of the tendency to simply rely on media and accept everything that's reported without any personal reflection, which is now more than ever critical given what is now established beyond a doubt that legacy media is skewed to the left, especially when it comes to Trump.
Just to illustrate how leftist media frames almost everything away from the truth when it comes to Trump, look at this headline of a recent event.
What I have tried to say is be careful not to fall for what is called "the fallacy of an appeal to authority". Yes we give deference to someone with authority or domain expertise, but it should not be a blank cheque, or blind trust. The truth may be something else. We need some critical thinking ourselves.
The factual critique"Haul in total for 2025 -- US$2.2bn (S$2.95bn)"
There is no attempt to tell you what this is. Just trust him. If someone is making a point, don't you think you should be told what it is all about?
The mandatory disclosure by Trump is a whopping 927 pages. I have not seen this nor wish to expend time on it. I just culled from several media reports to have a general idea. It seems to me there is much conflation over revenue and asset holdings. The attack on Trump here is about revenue, so I shall just stick to this.
You need to know this standard disclosure is all about cashflows coming in. In other words, it does not report the cashflows out, the expense side. Some of the cashflows are subject to deferred income accounting. What is the actual net income to be reported to the Inland Revenue Dept, for 2025 no one knows.
Also the disclosure reports the income flowing through the entities that are attributed to Trump under the disclosure rules. Some of that economic value belongs to other family members or partners depending on ownership arrangements. It does not mean the full amount goes to him personally.
Different media reports differently, but almost all mention total of US$2.2bn of which US$1.4bn came from cryptos.
US$635mn -- (Crypto) royalties from sale of $TRUMP coins.
US$799mn -- (Crypto) revenue from WLF
US$470 mn -- profits from golf courses
US$55mn -- royalties from real estate branding
US$ 85.6mn -- legal settlements
US$4.7mn -- royalties from Trump watches
US$208,000 -- royalties from a special edition of the Bible
US$122,000 -- complimentary sports tickets
US$86,000 -- pensions from film and TV trade unions.
US$250,000 -- sale of a giant bronze statue depicting Trump raising his fist after his assassination attempt
I am assuming the average reader is unaware of some of the business aspects here. Let me share some clarity. Then we can engage some of the claims of influence monetisation.
(1) $TRUMP
This a meme coin, which is a cryptocurrency inspired by internet jokes, viral trends, or pop culture figures. It is primarily for fun and speculation, with their value driven almost entirely by social media hype rather than real-world utility. Its price is extremely volatile. It prospers for a short while after issuance due to the hype, then suffers massive decline. Most have fleeting success, then eventually disappear after a few years. Dogecoin (DOGE) peaked at $0.7316 and now is at US$0.0769, Shiba Inu (SHIB) peak was $0.00008845 and now US$0.0000044. Other than speculation, these coins end up being used for small tips payment, small charity donations and payment for small purchases.
The corporate structure:
Donald J trump Irrevocable Trust sits at the top. It owns CIC Digital LLC (handles Trump's branding business). CIC jointly owns Fight Fight Fight LLC with Celebration Cards LLC. Celebration is a shell company registered in the State of Wyoming. It's owners remain anonymous.
So legally, Trump licences his name brand via CIC to Celebration. The opaque Celebration is the $TRUMP coin issuer, developer and operator of the infrastructure for the crypto. Celebration runs the operation under the entity Fight3 which is jointly-owned with CIC. So effectively, the Operational Risk is carried by Celebration. If the project gets hacked, sued, or investigated, Celebration Cards LLC is the one physically pushing the buttons and running the code, taking 100% of the technical and operational blame. On the other hand, the Asset Control is still with CIC. The unsold tokens sit inside the joint venture Fight3. Trump maintains complete control over the wealth generated by his name, but managed by Celebration.
$TRUMP is built on strict scarcity rule (just like Bitcoin) and hard-capped at 1 billion tokens. Initially 20% is sold to retail and 80% held by Fight3. This 80% will be released in tranches over a 3 year vesting period so as not to dampen prices.
How $TRUMP was released to the market was unique. There was no ICO (Initial Coin Offer). So there was no announced ICO price. Celebration created a Liquidity Pool (the digital vault) on platforms like Meteora and paired it with some other cryptos like $TRUMP/SOL or $TRUMP/USDT. It started trading quietly at US$1.20. To establish deep liquidity and distribute early portions of the public supply, certain private allocations, large blocks, and early institutional exchange agreements were priced at a benchmark baseline of $6.00 per token. Within minutes of trading, Trump posted his endorsement on Truth Social. That triggered an explosive rush. Two days later the price hit the roof at US$75.35..
No one expected that kind of price for meme coins. It was partly driven by unprecedented political hype, clever marketing stunts (lucky draws of diners with Trump, game of golf at Trump golf courses) the Trump-association, and momentum. Like all meme coins, the price soon returned to Earth and currently is around US$1.62 (3 Jul 2026).
For allowing the use of his name, Trump's CIC earns licencing fees from the coin issuer Celebration. This is a one time cut on primary sales of the coins to the market. The high price resulted in massive revenue for Trump. Going forward, the balance of token sales in future is unlikely to earn so much licencing fees as price has bottomed out.
In addition to licencing fees, CIC earns a transaction tax. Each time a crypto trade is done at an exchange, there is a transaction-cut which is about 1%-5%. For trades done through centralised crypto exchange (CEX), the platform keeps the cut. For trades done through decentralised exchange (DEX), the cuts go to CIC. This cut is borne by the buyer paying-in and the seller cashing-out. Currently the daily trading volume of $TRUMP is about US$80mn to US$120mn, but we don't know how much is through DEX for which CIC will continue to receive the small transaction cut as a passive stream of income.
Secondary market trading volume for $TRUMP continues to be high because it is being used as a flagship asset by the PolitiFi (Political Finance) sector. This is a term for using a token as a popularity sensitivity gauge of a politician. Punters use it to bet on a politician's popularity like in a Polymarket. Eg if the Hormuz Strait opens, Trump's rating will rise so punters buy $TRUMP expecting the price to rise. Hormuz Strait closes, punters sell $TRUMP and price falls.
Bottom line, Trump earns royalties on $TRUMP by branding his name. Whether the price goes up or down, Trump earns royalties. There are many winners and many losers. It's the nature of the game. No one got conned.
(2) WLF (World Liberty Finantial LLC)
If you read the media, this is very confusing. Most just say US$799mn from WLF. It's complicated.
The corporate structure:
WLF - Trump family vehicle DT Marks DeFi LLC holds 70% equity in World Liberty Financial LLC, the rest was owned by Witkoff family + others. Media reports UAE interest took up 49% of new share issues which diluted Trump's share to 35%. The UAE company, Aryam Investment One is controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's National Security Adviser, deputy ruler of Abu Dhabi, and head of the country's major state investment funds. Although Trump now has minority equity stake in WFL, he controls the operation via ownership of $WLFI, a kind of crypto called governance tokens.
$WLFI - WLF is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol. Instead of building its crypto-lending infrastructure from scratch, WLF uses the Aave DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). WLF partners with Aave to deploy a localized version of the Aave V3 protocol on the Ethereum network. DAOs are controlled by people who invest in a crypto called governance tokens. WLF issues the governance token $WLFI which is hard-capped at 100 billion coins. Aave’s DAO is open-source lending technology and community backing. Contractually 7% of $WLFI is allocated to Aave thus ensuring they have a significant say in the operation. Currently 31.77 billion tokens have been issued of which DT Marks DeFi holds 22.5 billion, the rest held by Witkoff family + Aave + others. Thus Trump family holds 70.8% controlling interest of $WLFI, which means he effectively controls WLF's business even though he has minority interest in the company.
Bitgo - This is a fully regulated custodian trust company. It's job is to mint the stablecoin USD1 for the WLF DeFi when someone wants to borrow the stablecoin. It "burns" the USD1 on redemption by borrowers. Bitgo performs the custodianship functions for WFL. It vaults cryptos received, and invests fiat USD currency received as reserves in liquid assets such as Treasury bills. Basically, Bitgo is the issuer of USD1 but the stablecoin brand name is owned by Trump's company.
The US$799mn crypto revenue from WLF
Most media report the bulk of the US$799nm comes from the sales of $SWF1 tokens. The math does not add up.
Media report US$550mn came from token sales. By contractual agreement, Trump's company DT Marks DeFi is entitled to 75% of $WLFI token sales net of certain operating expenses and retention of US$30mn for reserves. So does this represent the 75% of net revenue of token sales? Public records show there were 2 tranches of token sales. Q4 2024 was a sales of US$300mn and another US$250 in 2025 making the reported US$550mn. Attributable to Trump 75% should only be US$412.5mn. The math is out by US$87.5mn.
Balance of US$799mn-US$550mn = US$249mn is from equity sales of WLF shares. UAE-backed firm, Aryam Investment One acquired 49% of WLF. Since the sales was taken in as revenue, it means the share deal was not new share capital issue but divestment by owners. But media report Aryam paid US$500mn for 50% of Trump's share. There were suggestions the UAE investors paid in 2 tranches so the first tranche of US$250mn is just about right. The US$1mn difference is probably rounding errors in the US$799 figure.
But does this tranche of US$250 go directly to Trump? Wall Street Journal report say US$187mn go to Trump's pocket. This is assuming all original shareholders divest equally so Trump's share is 75%, the WSJ gets it right. (Actually that is wrong. Trump's original share is 70%). Even so, to know how much Trump actually pocketed we need to know how much capital he put up in the first place to see the capital gains. This we do not know.
But WSJ is wrong because other reports say Trump sold half his share. So the WLF ownership is now 49% Aryam - 35% Trump - 26% others. That means the entire US$250mn is for Trump.
Prior to Aryam investment, the royalty cut for sales of governance token $WLFI by Fight3 was 80% to WLF. After change of WLF shareholding, the $WLFI royalty changed to 75% solely for Trump's CIC only. It would appear the other original shareholders (Witkoff family + others) forgo the $WLFI royalty for Trump giving up 50% of his shares in WLF to Aryam.
(3) The Other Revenue
The watches and Bible was just name branding. Lots of prestigious upscale buildings in many places worldwide carry his brand name. Trump does not own those businesses. He earns passive income stream from royalties.
If you want to hit a man, might as well also hit his woman. Michael brought in the Melanie Trump's documentary film deal with Amazon. That must obviously be persuaded by the only "Native Indian" senator in US, Elizabeth Warren, who accused this of being a "pay-to-play" project. Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and the film producer have vehemently denied this. Bankrolling movies for their Prime Stream subscribers is a big part of Amazon's business. They have multi-billion $ budgets for such projects. Amazon barely managed to break-even the Melania documentary.
The income disclosure does not mention capital gains from his investments in equities. Michael mentions "Shares, stocks and bonds in companies like Nvidia, Alphabet and Broadcom (when his administration regulars)". Like all presidents before him, Trump's investments are handled via a blind trust. That means all investment decisions are made by the trust independently. It's hard to see why blind trusts are OK for all other presidents, except Trump.
(4) Speeches and Book Deals
Michael acknowledges that "all presidents before Trump and their families have profited in some ways from their influence in office, in terms of book deals and speaking engagements". But what he does not like is Trump was able to make "such an extent of earning billions from it. Mind you, Trump has 2.5 years to go." The glaring error is that no president, including Trump, has ever gone on the speech circuit or book deals, during their presidency.
(5) UAE
Michael mentions Trump "... announced new international deals with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, “licensing the family name in exchange for payments from government backed developments."
This is what I mean when you read media and take it at face value, without critical input with deeper knowledge. Michael does not elaborate in this particular post, but various controversial issues have been reported by media and which he has picked up and also condemned in his various other anti-Trump posts. The pertinent criticisms are:
Nvidia - The geopolitical implications of Nvidia chip exports to UAE had been discussed by White House for a long time. The primary reason for the lifting of a sales ban was the concern the bans would push Gulf states to align with Chinese AI ecosystems. It is better to anchor Gulf AI growth within the US technological sphere. That was why the restriction was lifted for Qatar (which is a top AI development country). It's just a policy driven by national strategic interests, not because Trump's blind trust purchased some Nvidia stocks.
UAE company buys 2 billion USD1 -- This is the stablecoin issued by Bitgo Trust with token brand name owned by Trump. After Aryam accquired 49% of WLF, another UAE investment company MGX invested heavily into Binance paying with USDI. MGX bought 2 billion USDI to pay for shares in Binance. Anti-Trumpers are quick to criticise this as quid pro quo for something which they of course cannot specify. Most folks are unable to see this deal is one of the most brilliant deals ever made. If has tremendous strategic advantage for all 3 parties. The UAE wants to build itself into a crypto hub as one of the moves away from oil. The investments into WLF and Binance is part of their blueprint. For Binance, being paid in an on-chain USD1 rather than a capitalisation in fiat USD gives them a tremendous boost. The stablecoin market is heavily dominated by Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC). Having 2 billion USD1 gives Binance the liquidity to open up new markets of crypto pairing -- USD1/BTC, USD1/TAO, USD1/ETH etc in which they are the market maker. For Trump's WLF, it gives their stablecoin USD1 a kick start and exposure to the wide market demand through Binance. It's just business.
(6) Presidential pardon for Changpeng Zhao (often known as CZ)
CZ was found guilty of violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) because Binance failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering (AML). He was sentenced to 4 months jail, a personal $50 million fine, and a corporate $4.3 billion penalty for Binance. CZ served time from June to September 2024. He was pardoned by Trump in 2025. Trump said he pardoned CZ because he was unfairly treated by Biden's judiciary system. Under US law, CZ can no longer hold directorship in Binance. Haters say Trump's pardon was to allow CZ to continue running Binance. This is ridiculous because CZ had already vacated all his positions in Binance since 2023. Besides, he holds 90% of the holding company of Binance, surely he still has corporate control.
Industry experts at the time say the punishment was too severe given there was no fraud involved. CZ remains the only person to ever serve time solely for BSA violations. Most say it was "legal overkill" driven by the Biden administration's broader crackdown on the crypto sector,. While critics point out that Binance undeniably had massive compliance failures, defenders argued that the U.S. government singled out CZ to make an example of a high-profile crypto figure. The perception was a regulatory overreach and unfair targeting, which is precisely what fueled the political momentum that led Trump to pardon him in late 2025 for an unjust proseution.
(7) Crypto regulation
This is one of the most criticised acts of Trump pointing to claims there was policy monetisation - where government policy materially boosts a business the president owns. Trump family went into crypto business. The government legislated The Genius Act, the first major federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. It didn't help that the act was fast-tracked in a matter of about 8 months when most legislation takes years.
But here's the real fact. The US has lacked far behind in crypto legislation compared to other countries. There is no coherent federal regulation, relying instead on disparate state legislation which hampers development of the crypto industry. I laid out above the complicated corporate structure for $TRUMP and WLF precisely to explain the problem. It was not Trump trying to evade anything, but the incoherent regulatory situation made it necessary to legally ringfence the corporate structure to minimise regulatpry risks.
For the past several years, Congress had actually been trying to come up with a comprehensive legislative framework for crypto. But the Biden admin was against this, preferring to regulate within existing securities statutes. Governance was placed under the Securities and Exchange Commission which many thought was wrong because crypto is not a security. Biden admin preferred to govern by judicial prosecution. Gary Gensler, Biden's man who chaired the SEC, was a highly polarizing figure in the financial sector due to his aggressive approach to regulation. He was initially pro-crypto, which actually led to CZ offering a job as an advisor in Binance. Gensler turned the offer down, but as SEC chair, towed the Biden line and turned anti-crypto. He famously led a heavy "regulation by enforcement" campaign against the cryptocurrency industry, maintaining that the vast majority of digital tokens qualified as unregistered securities. Besides Binance, Gensler pressed many civil suits against industry giants like Coinbase, Ripple, and Kraken. These suits were all subsequently dropped.
Trump admin see geopolitical concerns in crypto. The US needs to play a more active role or the industry will go offshore. Regulation has to be rationalised fast. The Genius Act is reflective of Trump's go getter style. It got done within months. Not only was it impressive in speed, The Genius Ac is one of the most bipartisan bill passed in the Trump admin to regulate an industry increasingly seen as of strategic interest to the country. It was not passed to favour Trump's crypto ventures..
(8) Threat to revoke licence of broadcasters
Michael is right that FCC chair Brenden Carr has made this threat. Carr has said in a very PAP-esque way::
"Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not."
He has cleverly framed it under "public interest" which iallowd FCC to act under the Communications Act 1934. However, it will be an extremely high bar to prove against their 1st Amendment on free speech.
But Carr has other weapons. Federal law 47 U.S. Code § 315 mandates equal opportunities for competing political candidates in commentary shows (not news). This "equal time" rule is a major part of Carr's broader regulatory offensive against broadcasters. For this purpose, FCC has redefined that quasi news shows like The View are classified as entertainments or commentaries. If the show interviews a Democrat candidate, it must give equal time to the the Republican candidate. Failure to do so is non-compliance of FCC regulations. FCC cannot force shows to close down. But it has control over the airwaves. However, it may not be necessary to resort to forced closures of stations and legal battles. Just the threat of FCC investigation is enough to force broadcasters to haul in their presenters.
This is Michael's Facebook post ad verbatim. Read and ask yourself, is there one sliver of evidence there or just plain claims after claims after claims?
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US$86,000 -- pensions from film and TV trade unions.
US$250,000 -- sale of a giant bronze statue depicting Trump raising his fist after his assassination attempt
I am assuming the average reader is unaware of some of the business aspects here. Let me share some clarity. Then we can engage some of the claims of influence monetisation.
(1) $TRUMP
This a meme coin, which is a cryptocurrency inspired by internet jokes, viral trends, or pop culture figures. It is primarily for fun and speculation, with their value driven almost entirely by social media hype rather than real-world utility. Its price is extremely volatile. It prospers for a short while after issuance due to the hype, then suffers massive decline. Most have fleeting success, then eventually disappear after a few years. Dogecoin (DOGE) peaked at $0.7316 and now is at US$0.0769, Shiba Inu (SHIB) peak was $0.00008845 and now US$0.0000044. Other than speculation, these coins end up being used for small tips payment, small charity donations and payment for small purchases.
The corporate structure:
Donald J trump Irrevocable Trust sits at the top. It owns CIC Digital LLC (handles Trump's branding business). CIC jointly owns Fight Fight Fight LLC with Celebration Cards LLC. Celebration is a shell company registered in the State of Wyoming. It's owners remain anonymous.
So legally, Trump licences his name brand via CIC to Celebration. The opaque Celebration is the $TRUMP coin issuer, developer and operator of the infrastructure for the crypto. Celebration runs the operation under the entity Fight3 which is jointly-owned with CIC. So effectively, the Operational Risk is carried by Celebration. If the project gets hacked, sued, or investigated, Celebration Cards LLC is the one physically pushing the buttons and running the code, taking 100% of the technical and operational blame. On the other hand, the Asset Control is still with CIC. The unsold tokens sit inside the joint venture Fight3. Trump maintains complete control over the wealth generated by his name, but managed by Celebration.
$TRUMP is built on strict scarcity rule (just like Bitcoin) and hard-capped at 1 billion tokens. Initially 20% is sold to retail and 80% held by Fight3. This 80% will be released in tranches over a 3 year vesting period so as not to dampen prices.
How $TRUMP was released to the market was unique. There was no ICO (Initial Coin Offer). So there was no announced ICO price. Celebration created a Liquidity Pool (the digital vault) on platforms like Meteora and paired it with some other cryptos like $TRUMP/SOL or $TRUMP/USDT. It started trading quietly at US$1.20. To establish deep liquidity and distribute early portions of the public supply, certain private allocations, large blocks, and early institutional exchange agreements were priced at a benchmark baseline of $6.00 per token. Within minutes of trading, Trump posted his endorsement on Truth Social. That triggered an explosive rush. Two days later the price hit the roof at US$75.35..
No one expected that kind of price for meme coins. It was partly driven by unprecedented political hype, clever marketing stunts (lucky draws of diners with Trump, game of golf at Trump golf courses) the Trump-association, and momentum. Like all meme coins, the price soon returned to Earth and currently is around US$1.62 (3 Jul 2026).
For allowing the use of his name, Trump's CIC earns licencing fees from the coin issuer Celebration. This is a one time cut on primary sales of the coins to the market. The high price resulted in massive revenue for Trump. Going forward, the balance of token sales in future is unlikely to earn so much licencing fees as price has bottomed out.
In addition to licencing fees, CIC earns a transaction tax. Each time a crypto trade is done at an exchange, there is a transaction-cut which is about 1%-5%. For trades done through centralised crypto exchange (CEX), the platform keeps the cut. For trades done through decentralised exchange (DEX), the cuts go to CIC. This cut is borne by the buyer paying-in and the seller cashing-out. Currently the daily trading volume of $TRUMP is about US$80mn to US$120mn, but we don't know how much is through DEX for which CIC will continue to receive the small transaction cut as a passive stream of income.
Secondary market trading volume for $TRUMP continues to be high because it is being used as a flagship asset by the PolitiFi (Political Finance) sector. This is a term for using a token as a popularity sensitivity gauge of a politician. Punters use it to bet on a politician's popularity like in a Polymarket. Eg if the Hormuz Strait opens, Trump's rating will rise so punters buy $TRUMP expecting the price to rise. Hormuz Strait closes, punters sell $TRUMP and price falls.
Bottom line, Trump earns royalties on $TRUMP by branding his name. Whether the price goes up or down, Trump earns royalties. There are many winners and many losers. It's the nature of the game. No one got conned.
(2) WLF (World Liberty Finantial LLC)
If you read the media, this is very confusing. Most just say US$799mn from WLF. It's complicated.
The corporate structure:
WLF - Trump family vehicle DT Marks DeFi LLC holds 70% equity in World Liberty Financial LLC, the rest was owned by Witkoff family + others. Media reports UAE interest took up 49% of new share issues which diluted Trump's share to 35%. The UAE company, Aryam Investment One is controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's National Security Adviser, deputy ruler of Abu Dhabi, and head of the country's major state investment funds. Although Trump now has minority equity stake in WFL, he controls the operation via ownership of $WLFI, a kind of crypto called governance tokens.
$WLFI - WLF is a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol. Instead of building its crypto-lending infrastructure from scratch, WLF uses the Aave DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). WLF partners with Aave to deploy a localized version of the Aave V3 protocol on the Ethereum network. DAOs are controlled by people who invest in a crypto called governance tokens. WLF issues the governance token $WLFI which is hard-capped at 100 billion coins. Aave’s DAO is open-source lending technology and community backing. Contractually 7% of $WLFI is allocated to Aave thus ensuring they have a significant say in the operation. Currently 31.77 billion tokens have been issued of which DT Marks DeFi holds 22.5 billion, the rest held by Witkoff family + Aave + others. Thus Trump family holds 70.8% controlling interest of $WLFI, which means he effectively controls WLF's business even though he has minority interest in the company.
Bitgo - This is a fully regulated custodian trust company. It's job is to mint the stablecoin USD1 for the WLF DeFi when someone wants to borrow the stablecoin. It "burns" the USD1 on redemption by borrowers. Bitgo performs the custodianship functions for WFL. It vaults cryptos received, and invests fiat USD currency received as reserves in liquid assets such as Treasury bills. Basically, Bitgo is the issuer of USD1 but the stablecoin brand name is owned by Trump's company.
The US$799mn crypto revenue from WLF
Most media report the bulk of the US$799nm comes from the sales of $SWF1 tokens. The math does not add up.
Media report US$550mn came from token sales. By contractual agreement, Trump's company DT Marks DeFi is entitled to 75% of $WLFI token sales net of certain operating expenses and retention of US$30mn for reserves. So does this represent the 75% of net revenue of token sales? Public records show there were 2 tranches of token sales. Q4 2024 was a sales of US$300mn and another US$250 in 2025 making the reported US$550mn. Attributable to Trump 75% should only be US$412.5mn. The math is out by US$87.5mn.
Balance of US$799mn-US$550mn = US$249mn is from equity sales of WLF shares. UAE-backed firm, Aryam Investment One acquired 49% of WLF. Since the sales was taken in as revenue, it means the share deal was not new share capital issue but divestment by owners. But media report Aryam paid US$500mn for 50% of Trump's share. There were suggestions the UAE investors paid in 2 tranches so the first tranche of US$250mn is just about right. The US$1mn difference is probably rounding errors in the US$799 figure.
But does this tranche of US$250 go directly to Trump? Wall Street Journal report say US$187mn go to Trump's pocket. This is assuming all original shareholders divest equally so Trump's share is 75%, the WSJ gets it right. (Actually that is wrong. Trump's original share is 70%). Even so, to know how much Trump actually pocketed we need to know how much capital he put up in the first place to see the capital gains. This we do not know.
But WSJ is wrong because other reports say Trump sold half his share. So the WLF ownership is now 49% Aryam - 35% Trump - 26% others. That means the entire US$250mn is for Trump.
Prior to Aryam investment, the royalty cut for sales of governance token $WLFI by Fight3 was 80% to WLF. After change of WLF shareholding, the $WLFI royalty changed to 75% solely for Trump's CIC only. It would appear the other original shareholders (Witkoff family + others) forgo the $WLFI royalty for Trump giving up 50% of his shares in WLF to Aryam.
(3) The Other Revenue
The watches and Bible was just name branding. Lots of prestigious upscale buildings in many places worldwide carry his brand name. Trump does not own those businesses. He earns passive income stream from royalties.
If you want to hit a man, might as well also hit his woman. Michael brought in the Melanie Trump's documentary film deal with Amazon. That must obviously be persuaded by the only "Native Indian" senator in US, Elizabeth Warren, who accused this of being a "pay-to-play" project. Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and the film producer have vehemently denied this. Bankrolling movies for their Prime Stream subscribers is a big part of Amazon's business. They have multi-billion $ budgets for such projects. Amazon barely managed to break-even the Melania documentary.
The income disclosure does not mention capital gains from his investments in equities. Michael mentions "Shares, stocks and bonds in companies like Nvidia, Alphabet and Broadcom (when his administration regulars)". Like all presidents before him, Trump's investments are handled via a blind trust. That means all investment decisions are made by the trust independently. It's hard to see why blind trusts are OK for all other presidents, except Trump.
(4) Speeches and Book Deals
Michael acknowledges that "all presidents before Trump and their families have profited in some ways from their influence in office, in terms of book deals and speaking engagements". But what he does not like is Trump was able to make "such an extent of earning billions from it. Mind you, Trump has 2.5 years to go." The glaring error is that no president, including Trump, has ever gone on the speech circuit or book deals, during their presidency.
(5) UAE
Michael mentions Trump "... announced new international deals with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, “licensing the family name in exchange for payments from government backed developments."
This is what I mean when you read media and take it at face value, without critical input with deeper knowledge. Michael does not elaborate in this particular post, but various controversial issues have been reported by media and which he has picked up and also condemned in his various other anti-Trump posts. The pertinent criticisms are:
Nvidia - The geopolitical implications of Nvidia chip exports to UAE had been discussed by White House for a long time. The primary reason for the lifting of a sales ban was the concern the bans would push Gulf states to align with Chinese AI ecosystems. It is better to anchor Gulf AI growth within the US technological sphere. That was why the restriction was lifted for Qatar (which is a top AI development country). It's just a policy driven by national strategic interests, not because Trump's blind trust purchased some Nvidia stocks.
UAE company buys 2 billion USD1 -- This is the stablecoin issued by Bitgo Trust with token brand name owned by Trump. After Aryam accquired 49% of WLF, another UAE investment company MGX invested heavily into Binance paying with USDI. MGX bought 2 billion USDI to pay for shares in Binance. Anti-Trumpers are quick to criticise this as quid pro quo for something which they of course cannot specify. Most folks are unable to see this deal is one of the most brilliant deals ever made. If has tremendous strategic advantage for all 3 parties. The UAE wants to build itself into a crypto hub as one of the moves away from oil. The investments into WLF and Binance is part of their blueprint. For Binance, being paid in an on-chain USD1 rather than a capitalisation in fiat USD gives them a tremendous boost. The stablecoin market is heavily dominated by Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC). Having 2 billion USD1 gives Binance the liquidity to open up new markets of crypto pairing -- USD1/BTC, USD1/TAO, USD1/ETH etc in which they are the market maker. For Trump's WLF, it gives their stablecoin USD1 a kick start and exposure to the wide market demand through Binance. It's just business.
(6) Presidential pardon for Changpeng Zhao (often known as CZ)
CZ was found guilty of violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) because Binance failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering (AML). He was sentenced to 4 months jail, a personal $50 million fine, and a corporate $4.3 billion penalty for Binance. CZ served time from June to September 2024. He was pardoned by Trump in 2025. Trump said he pardoned CZ because he was unfairly treated by Biden's judiciary system. Under US law, CZ can no longer hold directorship in Binance. Haters say Trump's pardon was to allow CZ to continue running Binance. This is ridiculous because CZ had already vacated all his positions in Binance since 2023. Besides, he holds 90% of the holding company of Binance, surely he still has corporate control.
Industry experts at the time say the punishment was too severe given there was no fraud involved. CZ remains the only person to ever serve time solely for BSA violations. Most say it was "legal overkill" driven by the Biden administration's broader crackdown on the crypto sector,. While critics point out that Binance undeniably had massive compliance failures, defenders argued that the U.S. government singled out CZ to make an example of a high-profile crypto figure. The perception was a regulatory overreach and unfair targeting, which is precisely what fueled the political momentum that led Trump to pardon him in late 2025 for an unjust proseution.
(7) Crypto regulation
This is one of the most criticised acts of Trump pointing to claims there was policy monetisation - where government policy materially boosts a business the president owns. Trump family went into crypto business. The government legislated The Genius Act, the first major federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. It didn't help that the act was fast-tracked in a matter of about 8 months when most legislation takes years.
But here's the real fact. The US has lacked far behind in crypto legislation compared to other countries. There is no coherent federal regulation, relying instead on disparate state legislation which hampers development of the crypto industry. I laid out above the complicated corporate structure for $TRUMP and WLF precisely to explain the problem. It was not Trump trying to evade anything, but the incoherent regulatory situation made it necessary to legally ringfence the corporate structure to minimise regulatpry risks.
For the past several years, Congress had actually been trying to come up with a comprehensive legislative framework for crypto. But the Biden admin was against this, preferring to regulate within existing securities statutes. Governance was placed under the Securities and Exchange Commission which many thought was wrong because crypto is not a security. Biden admin preferred to govern by judicial prosecution. Gary Gensler, Biden's man who chaired the SEC, was a highly polarizing figure in the financial sector due to his aggressive approach to regulation. He was initially pro-crypto, which actually led to CZ offering a job as an advisor in Binance. Gensler turned the offer down, but as SEC chair, towed the Biden line and turned anti-crypto. He famously led a heavy "regulation by enforcement" campaign against the cryptocurrency industry, maintaining that the vast majority of digital tokens qualified as unregistered securities. Besides Binance, Gensler pressed many civil suits against industry giants like Coinbase, Ripple, and Kraken. These suits were all subsequently dropped.
Trump admin see geopolitical concerns in crypto. The US needs to play a more active role or the industry will go offshore. Regulation has to be rationalised fast. The Genius Act is reflective of Trump's go getter style. It got done within months. Not only was it impressive in speed, The Genius Ac is one of the most bipartisan bill passed in the Trump admin to regulate an industry increasingly seen as of strategic interest to the country. It was not passed to favour Trump's crypto ventures..
(8) Threat to revoke licence of broadcasters
Michael is right that FCC chair Brenden Carr has made this threat. Carr has said in a very PAP-esque way::
"Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not."
He has cleverly framed it under "public interest" which iallowd FCC to act under the Communications Act 1934. However, it will be an extremely high bar to prove against their 1st Amendment on free speech.
But Carr has other weapons. Federal law 47 U.S. Code § 315 mandates equal opportunities for competing political candidates in commentary shows (not news). This "equal time" rule is a major part of Carr's broader regulatory offensive against broadcasters. For this purpose, FCC has redefined that quasi news shows like The View are classified as entertainments or commentaries. If the show interviews a Democrat candidate, it must give equal time to the the Republican candidate. Failure to do so is non-compliance of FCC regulations. FCC cannot force shows to close down. But it has control over the airwaves. However, it may not be necessary to resort to forced closures of stations and legal battles. Just the threat of FCC investigation is enough to force broadcasters to haul in their presenters.
This is Michael's Facebook post ad verbatim. Read and ask yourself, is there one sliver of evidence there or just plain claims after claims after claims?
Michael Han (Facebook post)
This is the real Art of the Deal, and Trump is not even hiding it. It’s out in the open.
His annual disclosure was released on 30 June and it’s an abundant harvest. His haul in total just for 2025 is US$2.2 billion (S$2.85b).
If this is what Christian leadership looks like, the dejected turnaround of the Rich Young Ruler may just be the modern way to glory, fame and untold wealth.
The real art of the deal is to make it really no big deal because he is president, and like he said: “I've made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don't talk to them. I never - I don't even speak to them.”
He added: “Everyone’s profiting”. Well, he is quite right - the Matthew Effect has spun out of its orbit.
When accused of ripping off the office of the presidency, and running into serious and glaring conflict of interests issues, the Whitehouse spokesperson Anna Kelly said: “Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged - or will ever engage - in conflicts of interest.”
She emphasised that Trump only has the people’s interests at heart and whatever he does, he does it for the American folks."
Well, he may have a point about being a billionaire before swearing in, but many of his venture just before his second inauguration and immediately after, especially for the whole year of 2025, raised more than a few eyebrows.
Shares, stocks and bonds in companies like Nvidia, Alphabet and Broadcom (when his administration regulars) aside, some of the other ventures are not that clear cut. This may also apply to his real estate, since that was his stock and trade before his presidency.
And I am also leaving out his documentary Melania bankrolled by Amazon, where she earns US$11 million, and all the Trump merchandise like watches, luxury goods and special edition Bibles. They are just a drop in the golden pail. But the other assets are more questionable.
His administration eased enforcement of crypto companies and rolled back regulations, and with that, Trump reaped in US$1.4b from his family cryptocurrency businesses.
In 2025, his World Liberty launched off a digital currency called a stablecoin and a UAE firm transferred US$2b into the new coin. It is curiously the largest single stablecoin transaction in the industry’s history. His family also profited from it.
He also reached a settlement with tech companies after he was banned from their platform in the aftermath of Jan 6 insurrection. They paid him US$87 million.
At the time, “the Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr has threatened to revoke licenses of broadcasters”.
He has also announced new international deals with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, “licensing the family name in exchange for payments from government backed developments.” He earned more than US$50 million from these deals.
Now, all presidents before Trump and their families have profited in some ways from their influence in office, in terms of book deals and speaking engagements among other ventures. But it was never to such an extent of earning billions from it. Mind you, Trump has 2.5 years to go.
He is indeed at the top of his game, busy closing deals with the support and protection of the administration he controls absolutely. I guess when you elect an inveterate businessman into office, with such immense power wielded by him, you can’t help but see everything with a profiteer’s eye. A crab will only walk crooked.
Lesson? Just one, and we should all know it by now.
When something has become so blatant or in-your-face, it is no longer whether it’s naked self-gain or not, but whether those who turn a blind eye to it can profit from it. It’s the FOMO syndrome on steroids.
To make matters worse, if you add religion into the mix, what you get is a veritable heaven on earth, or an earthly heavenly kingdom.
Power corrupts, but absolute power rewards absolutely.
And in my opinion, no one embodies the tenets of the prosperity gospel more gloriously than billionaire savior Trump, especially when he stands upright on the shiny golden city on Capitol Hill as its commander in chief, or harvest-reaper in chief.
That’s the Art of the Deal, and he has reached financial nirvana with it - a state of perfect happiness or financial bliss.
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