Original Author: BUBBLE, BlockBeats
In the early morning, MagicEden announced a collaboration with $Trump to launch Trump Wallet. Upon the news, MagicEden's token $ME market value rose nearly 30% from $850 million to $1.1 billion within two hours. However, Eric Trump, Donald J. Trump Jr., and Barron Trump, who had never posted on X before, immediately denied any connection to the announcement.
Eric even posted twice, warning MagicEden, "I will be very cautious about using our name in projects not approved and unknown to our organization." With the Trump sons' "fact-checking," $ME's market value dropped to $960 million and currently hovers around $1 billion.
Announced and Denied in Seconds: What's the Deal with the "Trump Wallet"?
The news was first published on X at 12:10 AM (UTC+8) by software engineer and crypto researcher Molly White, who discovered domain and website information related to TrumpWallet.com. She noted the website was already online before the official announcement, offering a waitlist for the wallet and promoting $TRUMP token rewards. Bitcoin Magazine later reported on the event.
An hour later, at 1:35 AM, MagicEden officially announced collaboration with $TRUMP to build the @TrumpWalletApp. After posting on their main account, many team members reshared. MagicEden co-founder and CEO Jack tweeted, "Sign up for our waitlist immediately! Upon app launch, there will be $1 million in $TRUMP rewards. Users who refer at least one person have a chance to win a $100,000 grand prize." With the "invitation campaign" launched, TrumpWalletApp invitation codes quickly spread in the community.
At 2:21 AM, Eric Trump tweeted, "I run the Trump Organization, but I know nothing about this project," tagging WLFI, his AmericanBTC, and the $Trump involved. Subsequently, family members including Donald J. Trump Jr. and Barron Trump, along with WLFI team members, reposted and opposed the action.
Despite multiple "WLFI members" opposing, both the TrumpMeme official account and MagicEden team members confirmed the collaboration, leaving the situation confusing. The original Trump Wallet X account has been banned by Twitter, which previously belonged to MagicEden's verified account. Reviewing the website's privacy policy, terms and conditions, and "promotional activities" reveals they are managed by Slingshot Finance, acquired by MagicEden two months ago.
Two "Factions" in Trump's Crypto Group
This is not the first time the Trump team has shown instability. During his previous presidential term, internal team member factions were highly volatile, with personnel resignations being commonplace. In this term, as cryptocurrency enters Trump's governance focus, teams with related interests have become more fragmented, with everyone wanting "a piece of the pie".
MEME Token Issuer, Trump's Long-term Business Partner
Interestingly, from MagicEden CEO Jack's Twitter, he recently attended a $Trump dinner with the founder of the acquired Slingshot, and the tweet was reshared by the official $Trump MEME account. On June 3rd, TRUMP MEME officially announced airdropping 3 different Solana Non-Fungible Tokens to wallets of users participating in the "Dinner with Trump" event, which now seems like a prelude to the "Trump Wallet App".
From left to right: Slingshot founder Clinton Bembry Jr., MagicEden founder Jack, MagicEden Chief Business Officer Chris Akhavan
(Translation continues in the same manner for the rest of the text)DTTM Operations LLC also holds the trademark for "THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION", and the registered copyright of $Trump is not provided with "IP support" by THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION led by Eric Trump, but rather obtained from the IP ownership of DTTM Operations LLC.
Although Trump claimed to hand over daily business to his children (such as Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump) during his presidency, DTTM Operations LLC is still generally viewed as an entity protecting and managing Trump-related assets.
In addition to Bill Zanker, the community believes that the leaders of $Trump also include the involvement of David Sacks, chairman of the crypto committee, who is known as one of the PayPal founders and later became famous by creating Yammer and selling it to Microsoft for $1.2 billion. In the crypto world, David Sacks' most important identity is as an investor in crypto venture capital firm Multicoin and a Solana maximalist.
"One of the stupidest attacks against me this year is saying I sold SOL tokens to retail investors. If that were true, they should have made a fortune by now, congratulations to everyone holding SOL" - Sacks never sold SOL even during the FTX collapse.
Because $Trump is deployed on the Solana chain, and David Sacks remained silent about these "zero-sum meme tokens" when Trump launched $TRUMP, many believe that the chairman of the crypto committee and PayPal Mafia member is likely involved.
Extended reading: 'Silicon Valley Turns Right: Peter Thiel, a16z, and the Political Ambitions of Cryptocurrency'
Within a few days of $Trump, $MELANIA, named after Trump's wife Melania, was also issued. Messari founder Ryan Selkis tweeted to Trump, suggesting he fire the team recommending the $MELANIA project. "The project team lacks professional capabilities, could cause significant economic and reputational losses, and project decisions do not fully consider Trump's interests," Selkis pointed out the problems with $MELANIA.
Compared to $TRUMP, $MELANIA's issuance was more hasty, with incomplete front-end code, uncompressed images, a website built only a day before project launch, and non-rigorous legal text. Many netizens speculate that $MELANIA and $TRUMP have many different approaches and might not be operated by the same team.
More than one community member leaked, "If my source is not wrong, $TRUMP was pushed by crypto czar David Sacks, while $MELANIA was done by the Worldliberty team. But we can be sure that these two tokens were not made by the same team".
WLFI "Interest Group", Middle East Special Envoy Father-Son Team
History is surprisingly similar. Just like the last time $Trump and $MELANIA "clashed", after Trump's eldest son stated that WLFI would launch its official wallet following the MagicEden collaboration with $Trump. However, "Trump wallets" are not like Memecoin, and only one Trump concept wallet app can exist, which led to today's "real vs. fake" mix-up.
Eric Trump sent a series of text messages to The New York Times, further escalating the dispute, stating that the Trump family will legally challenge the "$TRUMP Wallet", despite the wallet being promoted on social media by an account related to Bill Zanker, who is also part of the "Trump interest group". "This product has not reached any agreement," Eric Trump wrote, "It has not been approved".
WLFI was established on September 16, 2024, when President-elect Donald Trump announced his entry into X. The company was founded by real estate mogul Steve Witkoff and his son Zach Witkoff, with Trump's sons Eric Trump and Donald J. Trump Jr. also participating as team members.
Justin Sun (left), Zach Witkoff (center), Trump's second son Eric Trump (right) attending the crypto conference Token 2049 in Dubai
Zach Witkoff, son of Witkoff and co-founder of crypto enterprise World Liberty Financial, announced at a conference in Dubai that the company has reached an agreement with Tahnoon's enterprise, which will purchase $2 billion of World Liberty's stablecoin USD 1. The Witkoff father-son duo and the Trump family are expected to receive tens of millions of dollars in annual profits, as "the Trump family holds 60% of World Liberty Financial's shares".
Since last fall, the Trump family has started multiple crypto projects, including American Bitcoin, $TRUMP, $MELANIA, World Liberty Financial, and Trump Media & Technology Group. The Trump family's crypto business has not stopped recently. Besides today's "wallet" farce, Trump's social platform Truth Social submitted a Bitcoin ETF application, Trump's wife's official meme coin $MELANIA reached a liquidity provision agreement with Wintermute, and WLFI airdropped 47 USD 1 tokens to its token subscribers' addresses, seemingly entering the stablecoin track smoothly.
At this point, the team behind $Trump and Trump Non-Fungible Token, which has exhausted its benefits and can no longer extract liquidity from the market, seems to be gradually moving away from the core circle of the "Trump Group".
Crypto in 2025 belongs to the Trump family.
