Major foreign media reported on March 31 (local time) that Donald Trump, the President of the United States, and his family have begun mining cryptocurrency.
According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), President Trump's eldest son and second son, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric, established an artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure company named 'American Data Center (ADC),' which will launch the cryptocurrency mining company 'American Bitcoin.'
ADC, operated by Trump Jr. and Eric, will merge with the bitcoin mining division of cryptocurrency infrastructure company HUT8. ADC will own 20% of the newly established American Bitcoin. The Trump family explained that American Bitcoin will operate 61,000 bitcoin mining machines, becoming the largest bitcoin mining company in the world.
Trump Jr. and Eric intensified their cryptocurrency investments around the time of the elections last year. After launching the virtual asset platform 'World Liberty Financial' (WLF) in September last year, they sold meme coins associated with President Trump and his wife. The sales reached $550 million (approximately 810.5 billion won). They have recently entered the stablecoin market.
Additionally, the operating company of the social media platform (SNS) 'Truth Social,' founded by President Trump, stated that it plans to invest up to $250 million (approximately 36.85 billion won) in cryptocurrencies.
As a result, foreign media are expressing concerns about potential conflicts of interest. In a situation where the cryptocurrency market fluctuates dramatically with a word from President Trump, the expansion of cryptocurrency investments by the Trump family is pointed out as inappropriate.
However, the Trump family maintains that they chose cryptocurrency as part of investment diversification. Eric noted, "The Trump family's assets are concentrated in real estate," adding, "I believe that the best risk diversification tool for real estate business is cryptocurrency."