It feels like everyone wants to get into decentralized finance (DeFi) these days, and when there’s a will, there's a way—especially when you’re the president.
Earlier today, Trump Media & Technology Group, the media firm operating social media platform Truth Social, announced it’s expanding into financial services. The newly formed Truth.Fi will operate exchange-traded funds, separated managed accounts, and “cryptocurrencies or crypto-related securities” like bitcoin, according to the press release.
$250 million of Trump Media’s $700 million in assets will be custodied with Charles Schwab to be allocated into different investments, focused on “American growth, manufacturing, and energy companies, as well as investments that strengthen the Patriot Economy.”
The allure of the move is obvious: Asset management is a lucrative business, and Trump Media is tapping into conservative demand for alternative money management platforms beyond traditional banks. And that’s all before you count the current crypto hype, which has made launching DeFi products even more profitable lately.
Shares of Trump Media jumped 6.76% today after the announcement. Trump himself owns roughly 114,750,000 shares of the company that are currently in a revocable trust.
X marks the spot
But Trump isn’t the only person in the West Wing riding the wave of alternative financial services.
Elon Musk’s X is making headway on the firm’s long-term plans to turn itself into an “everything app.” X and credit card giant Visa are teaming up to launch a peer-to-peer payment platform creatively dubbed X Money Account.
Musk has long dreamed of making X a payment app since he purchased Twitter back in 2022. And Visa is giving X a shortcut: Instead of having to obtain licenses from every state to be able to transfer money, now X can just use Visa’s already-existing payment network.
For Musk, adding a payment platform to X will also help diversify the social media company away from just relying on advertisements for revenue. In a 2022 pitch doc, Musk argued that a payment platform could bring in up to $1.3 billion in revenue by 2028.
The bottom line: While these two strategies are obvious money makers, getting people to trust you with their money might be harder than getting them to repost you on their accounts.—LB
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