An individual who leverages the Official Trump (CRYPTO: TRUMP) memecoin to score invitations to events hosted by President Donald Trump found disclosure of his billion-dollar cryptocurrency profits "absurd" and "mind-blowing."
‘In Europe, Something Like This Would Never Happen’
Morten Christensen, founder of Airdrop Alert, has been a regular at exclusive galas and dinners for the top buyers of the TRUMP memecoin. Last year, he attended a VIP dinner hosted at Trump’s private golf club near Washington, D.C, where the president addressed the guests.
Fast forward almost 14 months, and the $1.4 billion fortune Trump made on these cryptocurrency projects is what everyone’s talking about.
“It’s quite absurd to be honest, a president that monetizes his presidency the way he did,” said Mortensen, who is from the Netherlands, in an interview with Benzinga. “In Europe, something like this would never happen.”
Mortensen called it “mind-blowing” that Trump monetizes not only cryptocurrency but also merch, watches, and trading cards.
Read Also: Decoding President Trump's Multi-Billion Crypto, Stocks Portfolio
‘Memecoins Almost Never Last’
The TRUMP memecoin was launched just before Trump’s presidential inauguration in January 2025. It reached a market capitalization of nearly $15 billion shortly after the launch, before collapsing by 98% to $368 million at the time of writing.
On-chain analysis revealed that nearly one million investors who bought the TRUMP meme coin collectively lost $3.81 billion. All this while Trump collected more than $635 million in royalties from the project.
But Christensen never really had confidence in the memecoin. He sold all his TRUMP in the first week and only uses a market-neutral strategy—buying the memecoin while shorting the same amount—just to get invited to Trump-hosted events.
“Memecoins almost never last,” he said. “It’s attention economy, and if you’re not out in first week or two weeks, then shame on yourself.”
So, if given the chance, would he use the same market-neutral strategy to attend those fancy events again? Christensen replied, “Absolutely.”
What About WLFI?
Christensen revealed that 80% of his World Liberty Financial (WLFI) tokens are locked, but he managed to sell 20% of the unlocked portion.
“I hold a significant amount on paper, but in my mind, it’s kind of worth zero because it’s a two-year lock,” he said. In two years, a project can die easily.”
It’s worth reminding that Trump earned over $520 million from the sale of tokens issued by World Liberty Financial, and over $65 million from equity sales in WLFI’s holding company, WLF Holdco.
The Rise Of The ‘Crypto President’
The disclosures have sparked massive backlash and conflict-of-interest concerns, prompting Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to call for ethical safeguards in cryptocurrency legislation to block any opportunities for Trump to profit.
Dylan Dewdney, co-founder and CEO of agentic finance platform Kuvi.ai, said the optics are poor and that the “long-term damage will be to crypto’s credibility” rather than to any one politician.
“This is, unfortunately, a case of crypto making its own bed and now having to lie in it,” he said.
Trump has defended his cryptocurrency income, asserting there was nothing “illegal” or “wrong” about it.
A White House spokesperson told Benzinga that all of the President’s assets are held in “fully discretionary accounts” managed by “independent third-party financial institutions,” while rejecting any allegations of conflicts of interest.
Read Also: Treasury Secretary Bessent Unveils $1 Trump Coin: What Do Prediction Markets Say About It?
Photo Courtesy: Joey Sussman on Shutterstock.com
