Benzinga - Former President Donald Trump was ordered to pay $355 million in penalties for fraud charges and profits on the sale of different assets.
The penalties have been accumulating interest at a rate of 9% per year and have snowballed to current liabilities above $450 million. The fine is growing at a rate of $2.6 million per month. The penalties have put Trump at risk of the court seizing his assets.
With a costly presidential campaign and high levels of financial scrutiny, Trump's ability to repay the fine is questionable, and many wonder whether he will be able to pay it back at all.
Don't Miss:
- If you invested $100 in DOGE when Elon Musk first tweeted about it in 2019, here’s how much you’d have today.
- Bitcoin has jumped another 45% already this year – how much would you need to get started today?
But Trump's crypto holdings are not often considered in this ordeal. While the holdings are just a drop in the bucket compared to the amount owed, the potential price appreciation could help Trump pay the penalties.
Trump's crypto portfolio was discovered by Arkham Intelligence, which cross-referenced Trump's financial disclosures with transactions on the blockchain to find his wallet address.
The wallet holds several million dollars in cryptocurrency, most of which is between three different tokens: Ethereum (ETH) Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) and MAGA Coin (TRUMP).
The ETH and WETH were obtained through the Trump Digital Trading Cards non-fungible token (NFT) project. Though Trump was not affiliated with the project, the creators gave him royalties exceeding 1,700 ETH. In December, Trump sold 1,075 of these ETH tokens, which generated proceeds of $2.4 million.
Trending: Large boom in cryptocurrency and metaverse interest as BTC skyrockets — has Apple Vision Pro increased the demand for virtual real estate?
Regarding potential growth, the roughly 700 ETH Trump has remaining could be worth as much as $7 million by the end of 2025, based on a price prediction of $10,000. Trump could also continue to receive cash from NFT projects and royalties in the future.
While ETH could see growth in the coming months and years, Trump could generate much more profit from MAGA Coin (TRUMP). The creators of this token sent Trump 580,000 tokens when the project launched in August. At the time, the tokens were worth a few thousand dollars, but they have since appreciated to over $3 million.
The token could continue to grow if Trump wins the election in November or if he directly endorses the project. Other meme coins, such as dogwifhat (WIF) and Bonk (BONK) have attracted investment to the order of several billion dollars. So, if MAGA Coin were to reach a market cap of $3 billion, similar to WIF, the price would be around $70, and Trump's position would be worth over $40 million.
This is unlikely to happen, as a $3 billion market cap is far from the current level of around $250 million, and numerous events would have to play out for the token to get there.
With that in mind, Trump's crypto dealings have a small chance of providing relief to his financial situation. Because the portfolio is public, anyone can monitor his positions and how much he has in crypto.
Read Next:
- About 22% of the adult population in the U.S. own a share of Bitcoin, how much would $10 get you today?
- The last-standing top crypto exchange without a major security breach offers what now?
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.