All the president's millions - Trump earns big in office

When Jimmy Carter was elected US president in 1976, he put his family peanut farm into a blind trust before he took office to avoid potential conflicts of interest and other ethical concerns.

Fifty years on, it was revealed this week that the current US president made more than $1.4 billion in income from his family's cryptocurrency ventures last year.

Donald Trump insists there are no conflicts of interest despite the fact that since returning to the White House, he has cut regulations for the crypto sector and has put in place policies and initiatives that have been welcomed by the industry.

So where did Donald Trump's crypto earnings come from?

The information about Mr Trump's crypto income is contained in his annual disclosure for 2025 which he submitted to the US Office of Government Ethics.

The filings show that his companies received almost $800m from World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency business that he co-founded with his sons.

That income included more than $520m from sales of crypto tokens and more than $250m from the sale of interests in the World Liberty business.

The US president reported another $635m from the sale of his Trump meme coins which feature an image of his face.

Meme coins are cryptocurrencies inspired by internet memes, jokes, or cultural trends.

"Their value is largely driven by community sentiment, social media hype, and celebrity endorsements," according to Forbes.

Justin Urquhart Stewart, co-founder of Seven Investment Management, said that while Mr Trump may have made money from his meme coins, most investors have not.

"He has developed a souvenir meme, which is basically a coin, which doesn't necessarily have a technical value you can use to buy anything, but it can be sold for value and it's got Mr Trump's face on it," Mr Urquhart Stewart said.

"That has actually managed to raise a figure of $635 million, which is really quite astonishing," he said.

"The price of it went up to $74 but it's now currently trading at $1.60, so an awful lot of people have actually lost a vast amount of money on it," he added.

In June 2021, before his return to the White House, Mr Trump told Fox Business that bitcoin "just seems like a scam".

In another interview with Fox Business later that year, he said that investing in cryptocurrencies was like a "disaster waiting to happen".

In the space of just three years, however, Mr Trump's views on crypto had utterly changed.

In July 2024, as his re-election campaign was ramping up, Mr Trump addressed a bitcoin conference in Nashville vowing to be an ally of the crypto industry if he was returned to the White House.

"This afternoon I'm laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world and we’ll get it done," Mr Trump told the conference.

True to his word, when he was re-elected he moved to ease restrictions that had been introduced by the previous administration.

"Joe Biden was actually acting in the opposite way, and was actually trying to put more controls on it for a currency, which frankly, most people don't really understand," Justin Urquhart Stewart said.

"It's a currency which doesn't have proper regulations around it and isn't going to be operated by any central banks, but Mr Trump has said he is trying to loosen all of this," he added.

World Liberty Financial

In March 2025, World Liberty announced it would launch USD1, a dollar-backed stablecoin.

A stablecoin is a form of cryptocurrency which has its value pegged to the value of another currency, commodity or asset.

One of the co-founders of World Liberty Financial is Mr Trump's Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff.

He has been accused of blurring the lines between diplomacy and business amid claims that he and his son have been promoting World Liberty's crypto interests while on visits to the Middle East.

In May 2025, it was announced that an Abu Dhabi state-backed investment firm would make a major $2 billion investment using the USD1 stablecoin.

Following the release of Mr Trump's earnings this week, the White House said that "neither the President nor his family has ever engaged - or will ever engage - in conflicts of interest".

"President Trump proudly made the US the crypto capital of the world through executive actions," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.

"All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people and any so-called "reporters" pushing otherwise are recycling the same, tired, false narrative that Democrats and the legacy media have been pushing for a decade," she added.

Not just about crypto

The US president isn't just making money from his cryptocurrency ventures.

Mr Trump also reported a 15% rise ⁠in revenue at his golf and resort facilities to just over $500m last year.

Revenue at his ‌Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, which has been dubbed the "Winter White House", increased to $77m from $50m in 2024.

His Irish golf resort, Doonbeg in Co Clare, delivered income of close to $20m last year.

TIGL Ireland Enterprises Limited, the company that manages the golf course and resort, delivered income of just over $14m, while a separate company which operates the hotel on the site, generated revenues of almost $5m for Mr Trump.

A lot has changed in the last 50 years when it comes to how the assets, earnings and business interests of US presidents are managed.

A multi-billion dollar crypto and property empire is a long way from Jimmy Carter's family farm, and the vast amounts involved could never be described as peanuts.