Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, recently saw a significant financial bonus from sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) featuring his likeness. According to a filing from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and reported by ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Trump made between $100,001 and $1 million in profits from the collection.

The Trump NFTs were released in December and quickly sold out, with the value of the digital collectibles spiking in response to news of the former president's arraignment in New York. On the official Trump Trading Cards website, it says that Trump's likeness, name, and image were used under a paid licensing agreement by CIC Digital LLC and CIC Ventures LLC, of which Trump holds the positions of "manager, president, secretary and treasurer".

The filing states that both of these organisations made money from the NFT sales, of which Trump profited from personally. According to on-chain data from NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam, the project has made over $19 million in sales over time. At the time of writing, over 200 unique wallets hold Trump-branded NFTs, with 65% of collectors hold one, and 23% holding between two and three.

Meanwhile, some of the remaining 1,000 NFTs have been held in a Gnosis Safe Wallet, a multi-signature smart contract wallet that requires multiple users to approve of any asset movement. It remains unclear how much Trump was able to rake in and how much of the 10% creator royalty fee went to him.

Members of the cryptocurrency and journalist community have been keen to connect the financial dots since the project's inception, uncovering stolen art, shady wallet addresses and a registered address belonging to NFT INT LLC, a company connected to the NFT project. It is also reported that Bill Zanker, the co-author of a book with Trump, has been linked to the NFT project, and has pledged to share a significant portion of any revenues with the former president.



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