Bitcoin has shot up to its historical high of $98,000 (roughly Rs. 82 lakh) following the election of Donald Trump as the 47th president of the US. During his election campaigning, president-elect Trump showed immense support for crypto engagement, vouching for introducing changes in taxation and business policies. In another pro-crypto step, Trump’s media firm has filed for a trademark for ‘TruthFi’, hinting at exploring the Web3 arena.
The Trump Media & Technology Group is reportedly exploring a foray into Web3 finance – possibly an assets custody service. Josh Gerben, a trademark lawyer based in Washington, US, said the trademark application carrying the serial number 98859006 was filed last week. The TMTG primarily oversees Trump’s social networking platform Truth Social.
The TruthFi platform is expected to dabble in services facilitating crypto payments, digital asset trading, and financial custody services for virtual digital assets. As per the report by New York Times, if TruthFi comes into operation, it is likely that Trump’s media organisation could consider acquiring smaller Web3 firms and onboard people familiar with the sector. Earlier this month, a Reuters report claimed that Trump’s media firm was in discussions to acquire Bakkt, a crypto trading organisation.
After Trump was banned from various social networking firms like Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) in 2021, he launched Truth Social to compete with traditional social media platforms and advertised the platform as a promoter of free speech. As of September this year, Trump Media was valued at $3.22 billion (roughly Rs. 27,143 crore), shows Yahoo Finance. The figure stood at $8.47 billion in March this year.
It appears that the firm is now looking to explore different avenues for funding and is planning to venture deeper into the crypto sector, the valuation of which presently stands at $3.33 trillion (roughly Rs. 2,80,71,228 crore) as per CoinMarketCap.
The birth of TruthFi will, however, not be the first venture into Web3 for Trump, who previously called cryptocurrency a scam but decided to go pro-crypto during his campaigning. The American multi-billionaire has promised to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet.”
Back in September this year, Trump unveiled a new cryptocurrency business named the World Liberty Financial. While the project has been advertised as one that would transform DeFi, details about the business remain undisclosed by the Trump family.
In April, Trump launched his second NFT collection after churning out millions of dollars from the first one launched in December 2023.