FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 6, 2025
CONTACT: Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org
Jeremy Funk, jeremy@accountable.us
Watchdogs: Trump’s Crypto.Com Partnership Blurs Lines Between Official and Personal Business
Washington D.C. – Today, watchdogs raised alarm about a new ~$2.7 billion partnership between Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), Crypto.com and investment industry-related firm Yorkville America Digital to market cryptocurrency-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other investments to retail investors.
A review from the Americans for Financial Reform and Accountable.US details how Crypto.com’s partnership with The Trump family business is part of a larger pattern of the company building a relationship with Trump Presidency, including dropping a lawsuit against a federal regulator after its CEO met with Trump to discuss crypto policy. Then the Trump family moved forward with this lucrative deal despite the troubled past of Crypto.com and its CEO Kris Marszalek, including Marszalek’s business history reportedly being “replete with red flags,” with the company’s meteoric rise leaving industry observers “perplexed.”
Notably, in December 2022, CNBC reported that Marszalek, who is based in Hong Kong, has been called “unreliable” by a judge, was “involved [in] a multimillion-dollar settlement over claims of defective products,” and was paid millions of dollars by his manufacturing company “months before it entered bankruptcy.” More concerning, Fortune has reported that Crypto.com saw trading volume grow tenfold in 2024, which left industry watchers “perplexed,” with one analyst suggesting Crypto.com could have engaged in “‘wash trading’” to inflate trading volumes or was helped by its in-house trading team, which poses conflict of interest risks.
“Using the oval office to make shady deals with crypto companies that line your own pockets appears to be a corruption crisis in the making,” said Mark Hays, Associate Director for Cryptocurrency and Financial Technology at Americans for Financial Reform. “Crypto.com is a company of smoke and mirrors with luxury marketing campaigns and full of red flags, it’s consumers who will likely pay the cost for the Trump presidency’s participation in this self enrichment scheme.”
“Congressional Republicans need to start asking direct questions about the gang of shady crypto players Donald Trump is increasingly conducting personal business with from his presidential perch, like what administration favors these special interests want in return, and what will it cost the American people? The less accountability and oversight the Republicans in charge of Congress demand from Trump over the Trump family’s ethically bankrupt crypto ventures–including dealings with many foreign actors with checkered pasts–the more the President will push the limits of self-dealing and influence selling from the White House,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk.
On May 6, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (“PSI”), opened an investigation into the $TRUMP cryptocurrency, World Liberty Financial Inc. (WLFI), which “may be enabling the violation of government ethics requirements, facilitating financial transactions with foreign nationals under federal prosecution, taking investments from foreign governments, and potentially violating federal laws.” Also on May 6, Democratic members of the House Financial Services Committee objected to and walked out of a planned hearing on cryptocurrency legislation after Republicans refused to address President Trump’s crypto corruption and conflicts of interest. The Financial Services Democrats then immediately held a shadow hearing, at which Americans for Financial Reform’s Mark Hays testified and Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone offered a statement for the record. On April 25, Accountable.US formally requested more congressional oversight over President Trump and the Trump family’s foreign personal business dealings, generally, and regarding digital assets and the foreign crypto firm DWF Labs’ transaction specifically.
###