Trump's week of crypto embrace continues despite ethics red flags
President Donald Trump called bitcoin a scam against the dollar in 2021. You wouldn't know it this week.
Key members of the president's inner circle are headlining the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, a vivid illustration of Trump's dramatic turnaround on the issue and a key example of the mix of a political and personal embrace of cryptocurrency that's raising new ethical issues.
Vice President JD Vance spoke Wednesday afternoon about the administration's efforts on stablecoin legislation. David Sacks, Trump's crypto czar, also took the stage, as well as Trump's sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., who are both involved in several crypto ventures of their own that have faced conflict-of-interest concerns.
The Vegas conference is the latest in a series of examples of Trump's pro-crypto agenda that's increasingly intertwined with his own financial interests. On Tuesday, the parent company of Truth Social, whose majority shareholder is Trump, said it was raising $2.5 billion to buy bitcoin. Last week, Trump held a private dinner featuring buyers of his personalized crypto memecoin, who dumped $148 million into the token.
While watchdog groups, congressional Democrats and even some Republicans have raised red flags about the Trump family's entanglements with crypto, Trump is doubling down. Inside the White House, officials insist events like the memecoin dinner are 'separate' from the White House and 'unaffiliated' crypto enterprises. And despite the bipartisan eyebrow raises, officials say there's no plan for Trump's private ventures to be put on hold while he runs the executive branch — defending the revocable trust where most of Trump's assets lie, which is controlled by his son, Donald Jr.
That's causing headaches within the administration, with even those working on crypto issues trying to separate themselves from Trump's potential conflicts of interest. Sacks — the former venture capitalist who is now Trump's crypto czar — has argued that handling the president's business ties to the industry isn't part of his job, according to a former Trump official who has been close to the administration's crypto policies and was granted anonymity to discuss the private conversations.
Sacks, instead, views his job as running point on crypto policy across the administration 'to grow this market and to make the market competitive with other countries,' the former official said.
'It's possible for two things to be true at the same time,' the former official said. 'You've never seen a president self-dealing off of policy the way that this president does. … At the same time, mostly, this [is] good policy.'
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment and a spokesperson for Sacks declined to comment.
Though the Trump family business has long been real estate, the president and venture partners have been charting the lucrative waters of crypto for the last couple of years. Trump was the first major-party candidate to accept cryptocurrency donations during the 2024 election. And in accordance with campaign promises, some of Trump's first executive orders in his second term focused on deregulation measures of the crypto industry.
Democrats and ethics watchdogs have sounded the alarm over how crypto is becoming a centerpiece of both Trump's business empire and his administration. Some argue the ventures are potentially opening the door for industry players and foreign actors to try and influence the president's policies on crypto and more. Others have blasted the fact that the Trump-linked crypto companies are enriching the president while he's in office.
'Just because the corruption is playing out in public, where everyone can see it, doesn't mean that it isn't rampant, rapacious corruption,' said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, ahead of the memecoin dinner last week.
The memecoin dinner was perhaps the most blatant illustration of the intermingling of Trump's public office and private gain. Trump hosted the dinner at his golf club in Virginia, where he addressed the top 220 holders of his personalized crypto token, a so-called memecoin named $TRUMP.
While dozens of protesters shouted 'shame' from outside and held signs that said 'Don the Con' and 'No Kings,' the dinner's attendees included crypto traders, former NBA star Lamar Odom and Chinese-born billionaire Justin Sun, who is an adviser to another Trump-linked crypto venture and who was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023 for fraud. The case was put on pause earlier this year by Trump's SEC. A number of individuals from outside the United States were also reported in attendance.
Before speaking at the bitcoin conference, Vance on Tuesday headlined a $1 million-a-head fundraiser in Las Vegas for MAGA Inc., a Trump-aligned super PAC, according to two people familiar with the event granted anonymity to discuss his schedule. The vice president's close orbit is full of some of crypto's biggest advocates, including Donald Trump Jr. and Christopher Buskirk, who are opening a new members-only club in Washington for the MAGA elite that counts Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss — crypto billionaire brothers who Vance called out by name at the conference — among its founding members.
During his remarks on Wednesday, Vance promised that 'loud and clear, with President Trump, crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House.'
'We prioritize eliminating the rules, the red tape and the lawfare that we saw aimed at crypto by our predecessors,' Vance said. 'We're ending the weaponization of federal regulations against this community.'
Vance last year disclosed owning over $250,000 in Bitcoin and said Wednesday he still owns 'a fair amount.' A spokesperson for Vance declined to comment on if the vice president still manages those assets.
The vice president's appearance at the crypto industry conference this week sent another message: Cryptocurrency is in a bull market as long as Trump is in office.
'This conference, this movement of people, is where the future of cryptocurrency in this great country gets decided,' Vance said. 'So let's start by making one thing abundantly clear: that future is going to be decided by the people, by you, not by unelected bureaucrats.'
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