Amid the controversial announcement of an “official” TRUMP crypto wallet, the Trump family is allegedly considering taking legal action against the project for using the likeness of the US President.
Trump Family Denies Crypto Wallet Involvement
On Tuesday, the crypto community was taken by storm after the announcement of an upcoming “official” Trump crypto wallet by non-fungible Token (NFT) marketplace Magic Eden in partnership with the team behind the president’s official memecoin, TRUMP.
According to the official website, the wallet will be “the first and only crypto wallet for true Trump fans,” supporting the trade of the TRUMP token and other digital assets, including Bitcoin (BTC). Users who join the wallet’s waitlist will reportedly have an opportunity to share $1 million worth of the memecoin’s rewards.
Magic Eden’s CEO, Jack Lu, confirmed the news, affirming that with the project, “DeFi can finally support seamless UX and regulatory clarity is finally allowing crypto to thrive in the US. The time to take big bets & onboard mainstream is now.”
Nonetheless, the Trump family distanced itself from the wallet, with the President’s sons taking to social media to clarify the family’s involvement. Eric Trump said in a post that he knows “nothing about this project,” despite running The Trump Organization.
He affirmed that the Magic Eden crypto wallet “is not authorized” by the Trump Family, warning their team to be “extremely careful” using the Trump name in an unauthorized project that is unknown to their organization.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr also denied any involvement with the wallet and announced that World Liberty Financial (WLFI) is working on launching an official wallet soon.
The New York Times reported that Eric Trump “escalated the dispute,” affirming that the Trump family would “legally challenge the creation” of the unofficial wallet in a series of texts to the news media outlet.
“There is no deal for this product,” he stated, reaffirming that “There is no agreement for this product. It has not been approved.” Since then, the “TrumpWalletApp” X account has been suspended, despite reportedly having a Magic Eden verification badge.
A ‘Bizarre’ Miscommunication?
Journalist and podcast host Eleanor Terret shared a response from Magic Eden’s team regarding the claims of being the “official” wallet.
In the Tuesday statement, the NFT marketplace affirmed that “It is the official $TRUMP Wallet carrying the official Trump branding and IP. Magic Eden has historically worked with the $TRUMP project to support their prior NFT launches and are excited that we’re working on a much larger project now with $TRUMP Wallet.”
Molly White, who first reported the story, called the announcement an “absolute chaos,” noting that “Trump memecoin team is Fight Fight Fight LLC (Bill Zanker), though the Trump Organization-affiliated CIC Digital also holds a substantial quantity of tokens.”
To White, “It seems like the breakdown is between the Zanker team and the Trump sons, but pretty incredible they claim never to have even heard of it.” Similarly, Ripple’s CTO, David Schwartz, called the incident “a very bizarre situation,” suggesting that the most likely explanation is a miscommunication or misunderstanding.
He theorized that the TRUMP token team possibly didn’t need approval from or to inform CIC Digital or The Trump organization to launch the project, which could explain the Trump family’s remarks about the wallet:
Depending on the deal The Trump Organization negotiated here, Fight Fight Fight LLC might be trying to use its connection to $TRUMP (which it seems to have bought for 80% of the supply) to connect Trump to other projects (like this wallet) which only benefit Trump through possible appreciation of $TRUMP. Fight Fight Fight LLC is heavily incentivized to monetize these products other ways since Trump owns 80% of $TRUMP.
Schwartz concluded that, “If this is correct, The Trump Organization may be very unhappy with this announcement — especially if they planned to launch their own wallet.”
