Donald Trump Earned Between $500,001-$1M on NFT Sales: Filings

A filing from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics shows that ex-president Donald Trump has earned anywhere between $500,000 and $1 million from sales of Trump-branded non-fungible tokens (NFT).

Trump also made more than $5 million in income from speaking engagements, the disclosure states.

Interest in the NFTs has spiked after the former president’s arraignment in New York, making for a very profitable week for long-time holders of the tokens.

According to on-chain data from NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam, the number of active wallets holding Trump NFTs has declined 14% to 207 in the last week.

However, during the same time period, trade profit for those HODLers is up by 651% to $12,000.

114 traders were in profit, according to the data, compared to the 285 total transactions during this time period. The trade profit since the project’s inception has been $9,040.

During the last week there was $212,000 in sales volume. In comparison, during the last 90 days, $8.7 million in NFTs have traded hands versus $19 million since inception.

Data from OpenSea shows the collection of 14,000 NFTs is distributed widely, with 65% of wallets only having one NFT, and another 23% having between two and three.

But how much is Trump making on the NFTs?

OpenSea discloses that all sales have a 10% royalty to the creator, which is higher than the average of 5%.

With $19 million in sales since inception, this project would have earned the entity behind it $1.425 million after subtracting OpenSea’s 2.5% fee. Of course, this number could increase in a bull market as royalties from sales are paid out in crypto.

Trump’s personal profit from the NFTs is not clear as neither the ex-president, a political action committee (PAC) nor his campaign is directly involved with designing or minting the NFTs. That’s done by a firm called NFT INC LLC, which has a registered address at a UPS Store in Park City, Utah. However, the LLC itself is incorporated in Wyoming.

Journalist Kurt Eichenwald did some digging and found the LLC has an address at a home in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The registered agent used to incorporate the LLC is Wyoming Corporate Services, which, as Eichenwald reports, has been tied to global scandal and intrigue from U.S. Defense Department grift to setting up shell companies for former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko.

Dylan and Bill Zanker are two names that have been associated with the project, although unconfirmed by CoinDesk.

In a tweet thread, Web3 security auditor Plum points out the Zankers have been involved with other celebrity NFT projects before, and the domain for the TrumpNFT collection points to the same contact address used for registering domains of their other projects. Bill Zanker has co-authored books with Trump in the past.

Federal Election Commission filings show the Zankers have not donated to Trump or a Trump-related entity up until the end of the 2022 year.

Currently, the highest offer on a Trump NFT is 10 ether (ETH), or $20,000. Most of the offers appear to be in the range of 0.3-0.32 ether ($626.50 to $668).