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Trump PAC has raised about .5 million in crypto donations
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Trump PAC has raised about $7.5 million in crypto donations

(Left to right) Eric Trump, former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. attend a memorial ceremony marking the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center at Ground Zero in New York City part on September 11, 2024.

Adam Gray | Afp | Getty Images

A political action committee supporting former President Donald Trump has raised about $7.5 million in cryptocurrencies.

Contributors to the Trump 47 Joint Fundraising Committee donated Bitcoin, Ether and XRPas well as the stablecoins pegged to the US dollar Tether and USDC, to the Republican presidential candidate's campaign, according to a Federal Election Commission filing Tuesday.

The PAC said the latest filing covered donations from July 1 to Sept. 30, but the figures included cumulative contributions.

With the 2024 election just three weeks away and competition virtually dead according to polling averages, Trump is counting on a hefty dose of funding from the crypto community. The former president has positioned himself as a pro-crypto candidate in this election, a reversal from his previous stance during his time in the White House. In May, he became the first major presidential candidate to accept donations in the form of digital tokens.

According to a recent report from nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen, nearly half of all corporate money flowing into the election comes from the crypto industry. The sum was raised from various donors, with Coinbase, Ripple and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz accounting for most of these corporate donations. The industry has raised about 13 times the amount it did in the last presidential election year.

According to the documents, at least 18 donors donated more than $5.5 million in Bitcoin to Trump 47. Another seven people donated around $1.5 million in Ether.

Crypto donors are happy about Kamala Harris

Contributors came from more than 15 states, including some battlefields, as well as the American territory of Puerto Rico. Her careers include software engineer for Lockheed Martin, sales engineer for Duthie Power Services, and producer for Esperanza Entertainment.

David Bailey, CEO of media group BTC, donated more than $498,000 in Bitcoin. Bailey was part of a small army of Bitcoin fanatics who indoctrinated Trump in all things Bitcoin and helped turn him from a skeptic into an evangelist. The process culminated in Trump leading the largest Bitcoin conference of the year in Nashville, Tennessee, in July.

Trump said in his keynote that his campaign had raised $25 million from the crypto industry, but did not provide details on the breakdown between digital tokens and dollar donations.

The new donors include Chase Herro, one of the co-founders of the Trump family's new crypto project World Liberty Financial. The platform, described as a decentralized bank where customers are encouraged to borrow and invest in cryptocurrencies, launched its token sale on Tuesday.

To date, more than $10.2 million worth of WLFI tokens have been sold, well below the original fundraising goal of $300 million. The launch was plagued with technical problems, including the website hosting the sale repeatedly crashing.

Mike Belshe, CEO of digital asset security company BitGo, has donated almost $100,000 in Bitcoin.

Brian Murray, partner at Craft Ventures, donated $6,560 worth of Bitcoin. Craft was founded by pro-Trump venture capitalist David Sacks.

Kresus Labs founder Trevor Traina donated over $25,000 in Ether, Chainstone Labs CEO Bruce Fenton donated $60,000 in Bitcoin, and Gary Cardone of Cardone Digital Ventures donated over $840,000 in Bitcoin.

Stuart Alderoty, Ripple's legal chief, donated $300,000 to XRP, CNBC previously reported. Alderoty attended a Trump fundraiser hosted by Sacks in San Francisco in June.

Technology for Trump: Silicon Valley investors turn against Biden

Alderoty is at odds with Ripple's billionaire co-founder Chris Larsen, who donated $1 million worth of XRP tokens to Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris' candidacy for the White House. Future Forward began accepting cryptocurrency donations in September.

While Larsen shares the crypto industry's criticism of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and the Biden administration's aggressive approach toward companies in the space, the Ripple chairman said he has more confidence in Harris, in part because she is from the Bay Area.

“She knows people who have grown up in the innovation economy their whole lives,” Larsen said in an interview with CNBC this week. “So I think she understands it at a fundamental level, in a way that I think the Biden people just haven't paid attention to, or perhaps just haven't understood the connection between empowering workers and making sure that “There are American champions who dominate their industries.”

In addition to Larsen, Uniswap legal chief Marvin Ammori also donated money to the Harris Action Fund. Like Ripple, Uniswap is also struggling with allegations that it violated US securities laws.

On the pro-Trump side, billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have taken the lead with a total contribution of nearly $1.1 million each. Some of that money was refunded in September because it exceeded the maximum allowed.

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